A Blue Death City
by xerox's ankh
Summary: With a world of terrible people who will come out on top? The stars come out for a dastardly plan thrown into action upon the arrival of two mysterious plebeians. Who will take sides in this tale of Castrophany.
1. Chapter 1

Tsubaki

It was a peaceful day in death city as the fall leaves began to fall harmlessly to the slightly crumbling sidewalks. The air held the sweet smells of baked goods being prepared in the local market.

I arrived shortly after talking to Maka on the phone. She was asking if I could pick up a few things from the local market for a little get together this afternoon for a picnic. We are going to be celebrating successfully finishing the extra lessons that death had assigned us. I thought as I moved into my favorite shop that was making fresh bread.

"Welcome to the Bakers Dozen." a booming voice coming from the Cashier as he was wrapping up with a sale "I haven't seen you in ages. Whats the occasion?"

"Oh...just celebrating with my friends." I said while looking over the many different types of bread that this shop was famous for creating "Can I special order today?"

"Sure what will you be wanting us to create for you today?" he said as he grabbed a form that would tell you what you could create and for every thing that wasn't on the list would just cost a little extra.

"I was wondering if you had made any raison bread today?"

He just smiled already kicking himself for not remembering that that was what she ALWAYS comes here for. "Yeah, I made two loaves this morning and someone came in and tried to steal them. I finally got half of the loaf from them and threw 'em out. Tell you what. You buy that first loaf and I'll kick in the other half free."

'This is amazing,' I thought 'I can take one loaf to the picnic and the other home all to myself.' "Yes sir, that would be great."

"Alright, and anything else?" he said while grabbing the bread and wrapping it in some transparent green plastic wrap.

I quickly asked for three other types of bread and paid for everything. "Thank you Mister 'till we meet again." I said while exiting the store.

"Alright" I said in a rather loud tone as I now had a full bag of bread "All I need now is some fruits and veggies!" I practically yelped as the whole street of people turned their attention to me as I pretty much yelled that out. "Sorry" I muttered to no one in particular.

I quickly made my way around the typical market you'd find in any city buying as much healthy fruit as I could, and in the end had a large paper bag full of groceries in each arm. not needing anything else I started moving toward Maka's house because I knew she had more space to store this stuff. I quickly found that I was being followed by something trying to be stealthy. so, I sped up and slowed down continuously trying to see if this person was really following and every time they would match my speed. after laughing at the lack of stealth this person had, I heard them get within ten feet of me before I heard the stranger say anything.

* * *

?

"Meooowww, why doesn't this girl stop? I could easily sneak up and take that FFOOOOODDD!" This was muttered a little to loud as the big boobed girl glanced back as if hearing my frustration. "Darn!" I yelped as the big boobed girl stood staring at me. I was wearing my large beige colored hoodie that obscured my face, only exposing my red eyes and a row of sharp teeth that was currently in a frown of utter surprise. My blond hair was woven in two braids that went down to my thighs and my midnight black tail that went to a faded white tip.

"Uh...hello. Umm...are you okAY!" The big boobed girl started as I ran up and tested the softness and texture of her breasts.

"You're just like the Boobie lady!" I exclaimed as I continued prodding and poking at her very large cleavage. It was then that I was very harshly pushed off my feet by a very red faced girl hastily grabbing her bags from where they fell.

"You shouldn't do that in public! It's not very nice," She said as a half loaf of bread rolled half way between us. It was then that I pounced at the bread only for it not to be there a second later.

"Hey!" I said looking at the girl who had the bread in her hand with the two bags in the other. Suddenly feeling small because I hadn't even seen her grab the bread, she was moving so fast; I decided to try a different tactic to get some food from her. "So you're saying that you want go somewhere private, neow." I said with a wide smile that would have made the Cheshire Cat from Alice proud.

The red hue on her face now rivaled that of a tomato "Nonono no no. That wasn't what I meant at all." She said shaking her head furiously allowing me to cut three steps distance from the ten steps between us.

"I was wandering. What did you mean?" As I said this I took four steps forward.

Still shaking her head, slightly slower now, with her eyes still closed she continued, " You can't just go around groping random pedestrians breasts." This statement confused me and made me stop to think.

"You weren't random." I said trying to give a warm smile.

"Re-really. Were you following me!?" She said still flustered from me twisting her statement.

"Of course silly. You are the only one here that buys raisin bread..." I said as the gods had forsaken me by having my stomach growl at that moment. Which gave the atmosphere an amazing awkward silence.

"Umm...D-do you want some. I bought one and got half a loaf free." She said probably seeing how embarrassed I was. "It wouldn't be any trouble. Here take it. It sounds like you need it."

'Why would she do this for you?' I thought feeling my face heat up. 'Since I got here no one paid me any attention and wouldn't even let me buy food from anywhere. No one even gave me a second glance except to throw me out of a store when I was stealing foo-.'

"Hello...are you okay there. Your spaced out petty far." She interrupted my inner monologue by putting the half loaf in my hands causing my face to light up. Starring at the bread in my hands, I was speechless.

"Why," I finally croaked "why are you giving this to me neow?"

She started to laugh, "What do you mean? You look and sound as if you have fallen on some bad days. I would feel terrible if I just left you here with nothing. BUT! You owe me a favor."

I did not like the sound of that at all. "And what," I said gaining a scowl on my face "would this favor be exactly?"

"Oh that is an easy one. What I would like you to do is," she said moving significantly closer making me feel a little uncomfortable until her lips were inches from my ears "for you to allow me your name." She backed up about two feet snickering as she did to me what I had done to her. I am sure that if I could see my face about now it would have been beet red at how the question was given.

"M-m-m-my n-n-name?" I stuttered trying and failing to shy away from one of the first to have ever given me the time of day in this city and genuinely sounded like she cared.

"Yes, I would like to know your name. Is it really so much to ask?" she asked in a singsong voice. "I-if you wouldn't mind that is." suddenly losing the edge and becoming very timid.

"Oh I w-wouldn't mind. My name is Tao...Taokaka. A-and if you wouldn't mind yourself could I have your name, please." I started to feel like I had over stepped myself when she murmured something that I could barely hear. "I apologize but I couldn't hear you." she looked around as if looking for something or someone.

I guess she had her moment because she quickly pulled my head in close and spoke into my ear again and said "It's Tsubaki...Tsubaki Nakatsukasa." I took advantage of this and moved my arms around to give her a hug without destroying the bags she was still holding. When she found that she was being hugged she didn't look like she knew what to do, but she settled for being hugged.

"Could I ask you something that I have been trying to figure out since I got here a couple of weeks ago?" I asked as I let her collect herself.

"Sure what do you need to know?" she said still seeming timid from the hug.

"Could you tell me where I can find the Death Weapon Meister Academy?"


	2. Chapter 2

Soul

"Why are we here again?" I asked for the hundredth time. I was starting to get kinda pissed that I was wasting my whole morning.

"We are here because this is the only other library in the city Soul," Maka said as she was looking for a dusty old book that a fellow self-absorbed student at the DWMA had returned to the wrong library " and you said that this is where Black Star had taken that book to."

We were in an old library, in the early morning, that for all intents and purposes should have been destroyed and rebuilt. The smell of decaying paper was assaulting and the rotting third stories floors had holes large enough to see the room below. The library was a remake of the library at the DWMA, but without proper care this place turned into a minefield. Where at the DWMA it is bright and cheery, this place was dark and cold.

"I say we just leave it. Or better yet, lets have you nag Black Star into finding the book himself if you're so dead set on returning it." I said in a heavily sarcastic tone earning me a Maka Chop with a rather heavy book she had grabbed off the shelf.

"Ow! Why do you DO that!?" I said as I laid there on the floor in pain. "It's so uncool."

She just Hmphed at the second question and continued "We already tried that, but the only person he remotely listens to is Tsubaki and I already asked her to pick up some groceries. Besides it would be a nightmare to find Black Star in any kind of mood to readily do something that he feels too HIGH to do such LOWLY things as to fix his own mistake." She continued ranting. I stopped listening to her and found that there were exactly twenty randomly sized holes in the ceiling. Finally she walked back over to me offering a hand. "And for the last time I don't NAG!" she whisper/screamed.

"Fine, you 'DON'T' nag," I said softly and finger quoted the ''don't'' in my sentence "but why are we looking blindly when all we had to do is wait for this place to open up and just ask the librarian to take us directly to the book. All this blind searching is uncool you know." I mean sure we were just sitting around our apartment when she decided to drag me here; but why. As she was helping me up I stated "You always make everything overly complicated."

I think I was pushing her buttons because she started to repeat what she had already stated in a voice that one would scold a child with. As we finally finished looking over all the books in the room I heard something ominous faintly coming from a back room. "Hey do you hear that?" I said trying to get Maka to shut up for a second

"Huh? What are you blabbering about? I don't hear any-." She started to say as a loud bang and screams started coming from the room of the library where part of the wall had collapsed and stood a gaping hole in the side of the building. When hole in the wall appeared the construction workers took all the books out of the room and locked the door instead of fixing the wall when it had collapsed right then and there.

"Maka." I said as I started sneaking around the corner hugging the wall.

"Hurry up Soul." Maka said as she was inches away behind me. She obviously wanted to get there before it was to late.

We walked quietly to the door that had been more or less blown off its hinges. When we got close enough to poke our heads through the doorframe Maka made an attempt to rush inside. I quietly pulled her back before she could blow our cover. "What are you doing? We need to know whats going on." I practically seethed.

Before we could see what was in the room the screaming started so die down and stop. 'not good' I thought as we snuck our heads into the doorway. We saw an underboss of Al Capone, judging by the insignia on the back of his coat, questioning a cat/girl thing that had a bullet wound in her thigh and tied to a chair. She had light brown skin and wore a black hoodie that hid her face except for two cyan blue eyes, the left being swollen shut, and a row of sharp teeth that would give Soul a run for his money. the hoodie stopped about mid thigh with orange cat ears on the hood, orange buttons, and an orange stripe going down the middle. She was also wearing long black boots that went up to an inch or two below her knee with blood gently pooling into the right boot. she had dirty blond hair starting out of the hood in two braids that went about a foot down before connecting into a larger braid that stopped around the bottom of the hoodie and a long white tail.

Maka gasped. An instant later I pulled her back with a hand over her mouth "Be quiet lets have a game plan. I want her to be alive at the end of today, alright. You being emotional right now isn't going to help or save her." I whispered into her ear.

Maka gave me a blush and a stupefied expression. As I gave her a moment to think of a plan I chanced a glance back through the doorway. the girls eyes were closed meaning she had probably passed out 'Dam' I thought to myself. "Umm… okay lets wait for him to turn his back to us and sneak around where we can get in between him and her." She whispered.

That had to be the most god offal plan I'd ever heard and I've done some jobs with Black Star. "Sounds good. Lets do this." I said knowing that this girl didn't have a chance if we didn't do something quickly.

* * *

?

ten minutes earlier

The broken room with its large hole in the wall was occupied by a me on my garbage ridden mattress with a ripped up fitted bed sheet. The rooms swollen shelves, due to years of moisture soaking them, were filled with my food and random items that I had probably stole. I was a heavy sleeper, so heavy that I hadn't even heard the door falling off its hinges.

The underboss was alone, as that dammed bodyguard killed the godfather along with everyone else that was in the mafia. He smiled as he found who he was looking for. He was pale white, wore a white shirt with a black overcoat, dark blue pants, and large brown steel-toed boots. He had black sclera, white irises, and hexagram pupils. He had a flaw that was very noticeable being that he was four feet eight inches tall.

Seeing that his prey was still asleep he moved to grab a sturdy chair and the rope that was in a bag by the door. Once he had the chair set up he went to tie the girls claws behind her back and her legs together at the ankles. He stopped and thought about how her arms resembled those of the cat/girl from his darkstalker manga he had stashed in his bag.

Done with this he picked her up, surprised that she was so light, and set her in the chair. He went on to tie her elbows to the sides of the chairs and her legs to the legs of the chairs. "Finally" he muttered in a mixture of relief and frustration. He was happy that there wasn't a fight, but angry because he showed up expecting one catastrophic battle between himself and the cat.

He wanted to laugh, he really did, but he had to be professional about scaring and intimidating and blah blah blah. He never really cared for any of the other techniques that the mafia taught him as he only cared about the first two. "it's time to wake up lass there is fun to be had." He said in a loud voice but the girl was still sleeping oblivious to the man in front of her.

SMACK!

I woke up to being hit in the face. HARD! To say the least I was just pissed off because I actually had gotten to sleep last night. "What the hell are you doing waking me up so roughly!" I exclaimed, the throbbing in my head was unbearable as my vision was slightly blurred.

"Really! That's all you have to say. I have to admit for a petty Thief! Your situational awareness BLOWS." The man in front of me said as he hit me in the face with something metal on his fist causing her left eye to swell completely shut. I tried to jump out of the chair and claw my attackers eyes out only to find that I couldn't free myself.

Growling to myself, I knew I was in for the long run. I let my head lean down but the man quickly pulled my head back up to his face by my hair. I just smiled as I had a wonderfully devious idea. all I need to do is coax him into getting him to put his face level with mine.

"Why the smile?" the man said in a husky voice, "Oh...I know you must be a masochist. I bet you are enjoying this. Hmm?"

That...scared me a little as he pretty much wiped the smile off my face. As he was moving his hand under my chin, I finally snapped and chomped into his hand and piercing his skin. he quickly hit me in the side of the head again with that metal thing making me yelp out in pain.

he hit me in the stomach and my brain-case a couple more times with that metal thing until my eyes started to tear up and I was really considering sobbing. Finally he let up and started speaking again "by now you are probably wondering why I am here, why you're tied up, and why I am wailing on you with my brass knuckles? Hmm."

I waited until his face came within a foot of mine. Immediately I spit right in his eye and laughed as he tried to get my spit out of his face. "Who would be afraid of a half-pint that has no business trying to act tough? Go back home before your parents get scared that their _little baby_ could be all alon-."

BANG!

That little shit freakin shot me. "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU, YOU LITTLE FUCK," I shouted in pure agony as he wore a very large smile and chuckled to himself.

"That might be a little hard if you keep bleeding over your floor." He said as he stopped laughing and settled for a half smile. he had a point though, I was utterly helpless right now. i won't lie, that scared the hell out of me but all that ceased to matter when he slammed a knife into my fresh new bullet wound and twisted.

my mental shield against all the pain shattered. My vision started growing dark, as I couldn't hear my screams anymore. The last thing I remember is seeing a couple kids poking their heads through the door.


	3. Chapter 3

Underboss

"No no no, this won't do at all." I laughed looking over my victim. She had finally had too much and blacked out. "What to do. What to do." I smiled as I began taking the bullet out of her leg with a little bag of surgical supplies I always took for just such an occasion. I did this so that an infection wouldn't start. I knew that if this wasn't treated properly she would die before I could get all the fun out of her. I kept digging finding the bullet had split into two pieces, grabbing the first one with my forceps and extracting it from the wound. I took a scalpel and dug into her to get to the second shard.

"Oh where. Oh where did that little shard go?" I started singing to myself finding that the other bullet had been lodged right underneath her femoral artery mere millimeters from opening it up. I gave a long whistle "You are lucky, do you know that? I haven't the time or the supplies to deal with a severed artery." I skillfully extracted the other shard and commenced to sew her leg up.

As I sewed her leg I couldn't help but glance at her living arrangement. It was okay, nothing I haven't seen before. My eyes pasted an old Polaroid picture taped to the shelf next to the food.

Seeing as I was done sewing I set out an old adrenaline needle, still sterilized, and set it next to her for when I wanted to start having fun again. I decided I would take a look around, and quickly realize this place was more of a dump than I realized. Probably thirty or so boxes of pizza lay thrown about every which way, a mattress that someone most likely tried to burn sat next to the hole in the wall with the corners of it burnt to a crisp, old food laying in the corner for days by the looks of it, and last but not least a huge chunk for ceiling in the middle of the floor, but I found my eyes drawn back to that picture. I walked over to it, careful not to trip on a huge chunk of ceiling.

It was a picture of two smaller cat girls, about half the size of the one occupying the chair behind me. The first in a black and orange hoodie was probably making a scary noise as she startled the other one, who was probably asleep, that was wearing a beige variant of the clothes. They were in the middle of a circular patch of green grass and flowers that was quickly consumed by old scaffolding and metal walkways.

"Well isn't that cute." Someone said from behind me making me pop my neck, turning around so fast. It was a girl, she was wearing a typical schoolgirl outfit with a black trench coat, heavy gloves, and black boots with white buckles. She also had ash blond hair with gigantic green emerald eyes. "This torture session is over."

I slowly turned my body to face her and said in a horrified voice "this wasn't supposed to be cute." I started to frown and continued in my more sarcastic voice "This was my down time, but if you think that this torture session, as you called it, is over. You are wrong. Think of it as... postponed." After I said this I allowed my smile to come back to the forefront of my face.

She was taken aback and quickly supplied me scowl, clenching her fists subconsciously. "What reason could you possibly have for THIS." she said pointing a finger behind her but still maintaining eye contact.

"So you want know why I am torturing this poor and lonely soul? Hmm." I stated, gaining a twisted smile and slowly moved my hand to my pocket. Seeing that she was easily manipulative right now I decided to push my luck._  
_

"No I don't, and I'm sure it's just for the laughs. huh?" she insinuated.

"No, I rarely laugh as it is. Why wouldn't I take pride in torturing the killer of my family?" I said trying to put up the best fake sad scowl I could. The truth being that she had stolen some important files from the mafia and switched them with fakes when she arrived to this city. When the mafia died, excluding me, the only job remaining was to get back at the cat that had stumped us for a couple days by any means the taker of the job saw fit. I am a fan of torture/murder so I thought 'what the hell, why not both?'

"W-what?" she said turning her head to look at the girl in the chair that the albino was two knots away from freeing.

'MISTAKE' I thought as I took this opening to lunge at her and punch/stab/slice her with the trench blade I had secured from my pocket. I got lucky, as she turned her head back to me as the knuckles slammed into her horrified face, knocking her across the room and into that albino who had freed the girl and was almost to the exit. All three slammed into the side of the doorframe with a weird crunching sound.

"Maka!" the albino shouted. I started to grin as I thought how funny the word albino was. "Are you okay? Say something."

"Transform." She said glaring daggers at me.

"Got it." He said simply.

The albino, who was wearing a yellow and black jacket and shoes and maroon jeans, suddenly turned into a scythe. The girl rushed me in an attempt to cut me diagonally in half. I saw this coming as she was clearly pissed that I had put a dotted purple line on the side of her jaw. I tucked and rolled to the left onto the ceiling that was crumbling under my feet and charged feinting left and putting all of my everything into a powerful right hook. She dodged last second making me fall on my face as she slammed the scythe in to the ground where my head was just and instant ago.

The trench knife in my left hand had been dropped when I hit the ground making me significantly less effective. Maka, I believe it was, saw this and laughed.

"What is the matter? Lose your weapon." She said as she started to charge me. I smiled on the inside as I let her get within ten feet before I thrust my hands into my back pockets and pulled out my twin spiked silver knuckledusters and I threw a punch that connected with her stomach at the cost of a scythe in the side of my torso. Both of us not expecting to get hit stood shell-shocked staring at each other's weapons that were still connected to each others flesh. I knew by how far the blade was in my side that if I had stayed there for any longer than I had to, I wouldn't make it.

As I grabbed the scythe with my right hand, I pulled the knuckleduster in my left out of her stomach to embed the spikes into her skull. Before my attack hit home, however, the scythe I was holding onto disappeared and I was immediately kicked to the wall. I slid down the wall like condensation from a water glass and attempted to jump out the window when I felt something enter my back. Searing pain exploded in my lower back as the cat had awoken during the fight and had limped over, grabbed my trench knife, and slammed it into my kidney. "Fuck all of this noise." I said as I pushed her away and jumped out the window before anything else could go wrong.

* * *

Soul

I ran as fast as I possibly could over to Maka as she lay there in a small puddle of crimson liquid. "Maka, you're okay! You're okay we won. We're going to the school and are going to fix you up okay. C-can you walk?" I said as she continued to not do anything, making me feel terrible for not protecting her sooner. 'all I had to do was protect her. That's it. Those extra lessons didn't teach me anything' I thought as I was trying and failing to stop bleeding from the four gapping holes in her belly.

"HELLO THERE! Who are you two?" that girl said sneaking up until she was about an inch from my ear making me lose what was left of my cool. I must have jumped about a foot from the top of the ceiling, not really expecting that cat to be awake already.

"D-don't sneak up on people like that." I said borderline hyperventilating.

"I'm Doukaka. Whats your name and why are you so jumpy?" She said slyly with her claws behind her back.

Seeing that she wasn't really the enemy but a victim, I didn't see anything wrong with letting her know our names. "Soul. I'm Soul and thats Maka. And to answer your other question. YOU SCARED THE HECK OUT OF ME!"

"Oh. Ny am sorry if I _scwared _my_ widdle hewo_." she said while falling down laughing, holding her sides for an added effect. I was sure she would have continued to if it weren't for Maka groaning in pain a second later.

I was at her side in an instant trying to find a way to move her without hurting her further. As I couldn't really do anything, I realize that she had grabbed a dark brown bedsheet next to Maka and tore it into long wide strips of cloth.

"Lift her shoulders up for me. I can help if you'll allow me to." She said this in such a stern voice that I stood petrified that the obliviously sarcastic girl could turn so serious so quickly. "Neow!" she exclaimed snapping me from the trance she'd put me in.

"Right." We started to work on Maka, well she did all the work as all I did was hold Maka's unconscious body up as the cat wrapped her midsection. Maka started to stir as the pressure on her wound was very constricting. The cat kept rolling the cloth until there was a healthy amount wrapped around her patient, but the blood was slowly starting to seep through the cloth.

"This is really bad. I think she might really need a doctor or something." The cat said getting up from where she was working.

'Why why did this have to happen to you. that should be me on the ground bleeding out, not her, ME!' I started thinking as I stared at Maka's blood covered midsection. 'We should have even been here in the first place. Black Star and Tsubaki should have been the ones fighting that guy...but what would happen to Tsubaki if her miester was stabbed right in front of her.' That was as far as I got before I heard shouting from the door.

"Lets go already!" I heard from the door "She needs medical attention Neow! And I sure as hell can't fix this." the girl said limping back over to me and helping me carry her to my bike. We exited her 'home', through the hallways, down the couple hundred stairs, past the many gasping librarians half-assing their jobs, until we finally got outside to my baby.

"Where can she get medical attention right neow?" she said, worry evident in her eyes even if one was swelled shut. We set Maka down so I could mount my bike and hold Maka in front of me, but with her being out cold she was like a sack of jumping beens nearly falling off every couple of seconds.

"We can get help at the DWMA. They have a great clinic for this kind of stuff. STAY STILL!" I said as I couldn't hold on to Maka and drive.

Doukaka limped around to the other side of the bike and held Maka like a mother would a baby in one of her long arms. She then got behind me on the seat and used her other paw to grab onto my jacket. "go." She said in a frustrated voice, probably because I took too long trying to get Maka situated.

I didn't need any more encouragement and sped down the streets to the academy.


	4. Chapter 4

Tao

"The DWMA. Why are you trying to get there?" Tsubaki asked me. Suspicion lased with every word.

"Well…since Tao got here ny was supposed to met someone important at a book building. So ny ran across the WHOLE city looking for a building made out of books... but when I asked some people I was laughed at repeatedly, until someone hinted at the Academy. Is…is that where the building of books is?" I said in a defeated voice. 'The only reason Tao's here is because the elder asked me to, and because she said there was a lot of FOOD!' I thought, making my mouth water at the idea of a feast filled with meat buns, rice balls, and other delicious delicacies all in honor of me. Taokaka, the Vigilante.

"OH! You mean a library. Don't you?" She said looking at me for conformation.

"Lie…braw…ry?" I asked.

"No. A library, it's a place where people store books. There are two in the city… but the one in the city has seen better days." She said finding a grimace at the end of her statement.

"Neow why is that. All the shops and parks and churches and buildings and... well just the whole city looks amazing." I said moving ahead so I could spin in a couple circles looking around the whole plaza we had walked into. She avoided eye contact as she chuckled at my antics.

"Well I guess you should follow me then. I'm going there today but I really need to stop by my friends house and drop these bags off." She said this in an uncertain timid voice but at least I have a good guy… well girl to show me around now.

As we walked the labyrinth that was death city to her friend's house, we shared that half loaf of raison bread she gave me. I tore small pieces of bread and hand fed her due to the fact that she was still holding her bags. She was blushing at first being fed like a child in the middle of the street, but she settled for being mad when she would try and grab the bread out of my paws with her mouth and I would pull it just out of her reach.

Once the bread was gone she asked in a soft voice, "So… was that you this morning stealing the bread from the Bakers Dozen."

'No that wasn't me silly. Where would you get an idea like that?' Is what I wanted to say but all came out was a nervous laugh "N-neow why w-would you s-say th-that?" 'She knows. She knows and you are going to lose her as a friend. Whhhhyyyyyy!' I thought starting to tear up.

"So it was you wasn't it." She sighed and stopped seeing me tear up but continued, "Why did you steal? I'm sure he would have just sold it to you. Right?"

"No he wouldn't have." I then told her about how I came here with virtually nothing, and how the shop owners everywhere wouldn't take my different currency. How I had to sneak in and out of restaurants eating the table scraps for my meals and how I was living out in hook cemetery because people there wouldn't throw me to the street or toss me into dumpsters or other less pleasant things that have happened to me during my 'wonderful' stay here. By the end I was in tears begging her to forgive me as if she was the only person who could cleanse my sins.

She along with six or seven other bystanders had a look of horror their faces due to me pouring the last few weeks of my life out for any and everyone to hear.

"Oh…I'm… s-so sorry. I d-didn't know." She said dropping her bags and hugging me as I sat on the ground crying. I wasn't crying out loud mind you just sitting there on the ground with my knees to my chest and my arms around my legs in a slight rocking motion with tears escaping my eyes.

We sat like that for five minutes until a little kid with blood going down his side rushed past us knocking into her bags behind us. After the bags spilled there contents all over the street he was gone.

'Umm… We should go. We can't meet your friend if we stay here. Now can we?" Tsubaki said in the most comforting motherly way possible. That tone told me that she was neither disappointed nor angry but caring and empathetic towards me. It made me know for a fact that she cared about me and wouldn't leave me when I say something dumb.

"O-okay. Sure lets do that."

We spent the next couple of minutes gathering what was left of the groceries and continued our short walk to her friend's apartment. She handed me the bags as she took out a key from her back pocket and unlocked the door. She held the door for me so I could easily make it inside and when I set the bags down on the counter where she specified I looked at the room.

It was a normal sized living area with sand colored walls and ceiling and light brown carpet. One side of the room was used as a kitchen/laundry room as the oven was next to a washer and dryer. There were three doors, two on the sidewall and the exit behind me, and there was a square marble table with two bowls of mushy stuff that was once probably cereal.

On the other side of the room sat two very different desks. One had opened and closed books strategically placed about with many loose papers, pens, and pencils ready to write the will of its user. The other lay barren and unused, and on it sat a matching set of books that sat on the other desk but in a nice orderly stack with a fine layer of dust sitting atop it. These desks sat side by side between the two doors making me think that what led behind those doors were two bedrooms or a bedroom and bathroom. I didn't get to test my theories as Tsubaki was calling me to come back to the door and that it was time to go.

She locked the door and we left the apartment. We moved down a different road and started moving to the heart of the city. We continued talking and she tried to get me to tell her all the names of the markets, stores, hotels, and other places that had given me the cold shoulder as we pasted by many thrift stores and restaurants, but I thought that my absence of business with them was punishment enough.

We finally made it up the hundreds of white steps and I saw for the first time, up close and personal, the DWMA with its skulls, spikes, and perfection. All in all it was beautiful.

"What do you think Tao?" she said giving me a warm smile.

"It beautiful. I've never scene anything like this." She just laughed to herself as I was having a blast taking in all the sights. I was running around on all fours up and down one of the main skulls 'till I got to the end of one of the spikes that impaled outwards.

"Tao come on down now we need to get you to the library. Remember." My big boobed companion said from below me.

I quickly shimmied down until I accidently lost my footing and landed on Tsubaki. While the dust was settling, I allowed my forehead to rest on to the concrete floor, but that didn't happen. I shot my eyes open to see that Tsubaki and I were locked at the lips.

Both of us looked at each other in the eyes and in a second we were standing away from each other, blushing profusely we looking around to see if anyone had seen this event. It must have been class time because no one was around.

"Tsubaki… ny am so sorry. I fell and didn't think you'd be under me and I landed on you and then I lad my head down and…and…and…" I said stuck between hyperventilating and having a panic attack. That was NOT supposed to happen.

"I-it o-o-k-kay l-lets just l-leave p-please." She said this in a small timid flustered voice that made me want to crawl away and hide from the world. We pressed on not saying a word to each other or making eye contact. We entered the main entrance and I was greeted to a wonderfully decorated miniature ballroom with signs pointing to every hallway. We went down the hallway that was in front of us ignoring the three hallways on both sides of the room. As we walked couldn't stop thinking about what had happened outside without a blush assaulting my face, and by the looks of things Tsubaki was having the same problem.

It was relieving when two little kids ran up to Tsubaki as it tore away the awkward silence that had cascaded on to us.

"Tsubaki Tsubaki where have you been? We've been looking all over the school for you." The little one with her little yellow hat said.

"Oh… well I was at the market with my friend here and-" Tsubaki started only to get cut off by the other one who was identical to the other with the exception of a red hat.

"No time. We have to get you to the clinic right now." The red one said as the two started running fast down a different hall. I lock eyes with Tsubaki for an instant before we sped down the hallways hitting several different lefts and rights. We finally made it to the clinic as Tsubaki burst through the door. After a second or two to decide if it was okay for me to enter on not I went inside and saw the carnage.

It was a relatively small room with two beds, the bed next to the corner had its curtain wrapped around it, a desk with a laptop, and three medical storage containers with medicine and other equipment. There were two boys at each other's throats. One was an albino with a black and yellow jacket and the other one had light blue hair, a black sleeveless t-shirt, and white and black shorts and shoes.

Tsubaki was next to the girl in the bed that could be seen when entering. From what I could see she had white skin, ash blond hair, four purple/green lines on her jaw, and was unconscious. There was also a girl wrapped in toilet paper around her arms, legs, and face. She had dark skin, black hair, ice blue eyes, and a nurse's outfit.

"Umm… miss. Why are you wrapped in toilet paper?" I said getting her to look away from her computer. I didn't know that she was mad until I saw her eyes. The intensity of them alone made me step back and bump into that blue-headed boy making him fall into the curtain pulling it back. My mind shut down as I stared at the cat curled into a ball snoring on the bed. I didn't even hear when said boy shouted 'what was that for' all I could do was stare.

Unaware that the whole room was silent and all the attention was on me, I finally choked out two words.

"_s-sora mea"_


	5. Chapter 5

Dou

Forty minutes earlier

We were weaving in and out of endless streets and alleyways toward the heart of the city. I paid no attention to the scenery as I was holding two death-grips, one on the jacket of the boy in front of me that my claws were shredding slightly. My other hand was on the semi-conscious girl, faintly moving her eyes to see what was happening around her. The bike I was on jerked suddenly making me lose my grip on soul and nearly slamming into a dumpster. Soul swerved again at the last second allowing me to force my body back into an upright condition. Quickly I found the back of his jacket grabbing much more of the fabric then necessary but I wasn't about to go through nearly dying again.

We continued until we started going up a lot of stairs getting air at the end of the incline. When this happened I started to fly off the back seat of the bike and lost my hold of his jacket, now this would HAVE feel amazing if it weren't for my messed up vision and leg, the bleeding unconscious girl in my arms, and the fact that what I was riding on was already on the ground with soul looking at us with his jaw agape. I was able to twist to where my back would take most of the fall, but when I was about to hit the ground something caught me.

Before I could get a good look at whom my savior was I had Maka torn from my grasp and was kicked in the stomach. Said kick threw me a good ten feet from the point of impact.

"What the hell!" I said quickly getting pissed off at the order of today's events.

In my current state I was not in any condition to fight but regardless I got up and into a fighting stance. I stood there for the fight to begin, but it never did.

With my one good eye I could barely make out a scrawny little blue haired kid laying Maka on the ground. "You monster. How are you just going to mess with a big stars friends like that?"

"Sorry for making fun of you but I need to be taking her with that soul kid over there so if you don't mind fucking yourself I'll get back to what I was doing and… what?" I asked soul who was making a pleading sign for me to stop talking trying to stop the fight that was probably an inevitability at this point. I really didn't care and just started doing was I always do when I corner myself. Which is destroying the whole situation prematurely.

"Neow then what's up with a small fry like you kicking people? I mean any kind of big star, I think you said, would be able to save the damsel from the danger which I guess at this point is me. Come now don't be daft…"

That's as far as I got before the kid finally lost it and tried to knock my lights out with one punch I saw how he was relying heavily on speed and brute strength and not even thinking about a guard. I decided to exploit this 'fact' heavily.

He closed the fifteen feet between us in a split second, he was fast but he about matched my speed, and through a large left hook that I moved out of immediately and sidestepped him and stood next to him facing the direction he was facing.

"You know. You need to put more skill into your fighting technique." I said right into his ear as he was still in shock that I had simply side stepped his attack. He jumped back and tried again. He jumped and tried to slam his fist into my face into the ground. I tried side stepping again but a sudden spike of pain in my leg slowed me down enough for him to slam a fist into my forearm. This could be a problem I thought to myself as the pain in my leg was growing into a hammering thud but I pressed on. The star stayed silent and I could tell that he knew I was injured by the smirk on his face. He threw a round house that I blocked. I took hold of his leg mid air, held him upside down, and kicked him away with my good leg, but before he could fly two feet away he corrected himself and did a leg sweep. Catching me off guard I fell with a loud umph and rolled to the side as his knee slammed into the concrete where my chest was not even a second ago.

'You might have bitten off a little more than you could chew' a voice was ranting in my head as my guard was deteriorating against that stars barrage of attacks 'You can finish this even while your injured. Come on finish him. Finish Him. FINISH HIM.'

"NO!" I shouted as I lunged forward faster than I ever thought I could go and slammed my balled up claws into the stars temple, disorientating him. I grabbed his legs and arcing him in many circles. The circles completed themselves with the star's head slamming into the ground, leaving many dents in the concrete, until I jumped up and threw him into the ground creating a massive crater.

'Finnish Him, NOW' I moved toward the star, who was struggling to pick himself off the ground, when I felt a prick in my shoulder. "What the hell. Who are you? What did you just stick me with? What is the big I…ide…I…idea…" I started getting real drowsy and the world started spinning. I tried running away from what was happening but I didn't make it six steps before all the strength in my legs gave out and I fell on my face hard. My head landed so that I could see the people surrounding me and the last thing I saw before my world went black was a blue skinned man and a mummy talking about a something with a needle.

* * *

Soul

"I really hope that those two don't kill each other." I sighed as I started heading back outside from running Maka to the infirmary. As I walked down the corridors I stumbled across Pot of Fire and Thunder.

"Hey keep and eye out for Tsubaki for me. Tell her to go to the infirmary. Okay." I said smiling at the two girls.

"You got it Soul" "Right away" they both said and saluted and ran off down a side passage.

"Uhhh. Alrighty then." And I stared back outside again.

The whole way there and back I was praying that Black star wouldn't go to hard on Duo. As soon as I got outside I saw the catastrophe that was the courtyard. Littered every where were one foot craters surrounding a much larger crater with a bloodied Black star seething and cursing under his breath. Past him were Sid and Nygus standing over Duo's sleeping form arguing about something involving dosage or something? I made my way over to Black star to help him out of the crater.

"Dude what happened out here? I was only gone for like… ten minutes." I offered my hand with a sly grin.

"Shove it. She just got lucky that I was nice and went easy on her." He said staring heatedly at his sleeping opponent.

"Seriously though this place looks like a battlefield. Well… not after Sid works his magic and this place goes back to normal. But I was afraid that you would take this way to far and hurt that girl." I glanced back over to her and Nygus had the cat over her shoulder and was walking to the school while Sid wasn't anywhere to be found but you could see that the craters were vanishing one by one.

"Come on lets go see Maka I'm sure that she'd love to see her friends," I sighed as I started following Nygus.

"Sure." Sighed Black star. He looked like he was thinking over his recent…

"You both were on the ground when I got here so uh… who won."

"Isn't it obvious…that _thing _did." He said with disgust, his eyes locked on Nygus carrying Duo vanishing into the corridors of the school.

"Ohhhhkay. So did Kim really-" soul started talking about the other girls bust accident when Ox tried to save Kim from falling down the stairs in class. After a few minutes of laughter they made it to the infirmary and walked right in. Nygus was going over a clipboard that was attached to Maka's bed.

"Is she ganna make it?"

Black star ran ahead and grabbed the sleeping girl by her shoulders shaking her violently shouting "of course she's ganna make it soul. YOU'RE GANNA MAKE IT MAKA!" this was as far as he got before getting hit in the back of the head with a 'clean' bed pan by an irate looking Nygus.

"I ask that you refrain from such _colorful_ outbursts next time. Hmm? And yes the wound looked worse than it really was. She should be out of here by tomorrow morning."

"Yes mam." He said rubbing the knot on the back of his head gingerly. Nygus went back to working at her desk as the door opened revealing a very quiet Tsubaki giving and receiving welcome and moving to Maka. After a minute another cat-girl, who had paws instead of claws like the other one and was wearing a beige variant to Doukaka's clothing, walked in and started staring at Nygus.

"What the hell is this? Another one." Black star muttered while tensing up for another fight.

"Hey. Remember what just happened outside. Besides you were the one who couldn't finish what you started."

"What would you have done?" he said raising his voice to suppressed shouting.

"Well I would have looked at the situation before jumping to conclusions and flat out attacking the girl I-"

"Girl? Soul I want you to 'pull a Maka' and write this down. Those things aren't girls, they are demons bent for anniha-" His voice finally yelling but was cut off from being pushed off balance by that other girl. He tried to catch his balance but ended up falling on his face and pulling the other curtained bed's curtains back.

"HEY! WHAT WAS THAT FOR-" he shouted but stopped seeing that she was oblivious to his yelling and was staring at the bed by the wall that held Dou. Everyone was deadly quiet staring at either cat until.

"_S-sora mea" _she said slowly taking a few steps until she was right next to the bed. She touched Dou gingerly and shot her hand back as she flew under the bed that was holding Maka.

We all looked at each other as the other girl repeated this two or six more times until the other girl was face to face with Dou and was about to tickle her nose.

"SORA MEA!" Dou shouted as split second she went from lying down to doing her best boogieman impression. The other girl jumped all the way to the ceiling and landed with a small pout.

"WHAT? How are you awake we gave you five times the normal amount of sedative?" Nygus said in a stupor.

"So… uh any one know what sora mea means?" I said looking around the room Tsubaki, black star, and I were trying to figure it out as nygus was still awestruck and the two cat girls were jumping for joy around each other.

"No but that girl's name is Taokaka but who is the other one?" Tsubaki said as Black Star clenched his teeth when she said 'girl's'.

"Her name is Doukaka and she, while injured, beat up Black Star…OH. Nygus how are Doukaka's wounds." I asked.

"What do you mean she was fine when she got here. Not a scratch on her." Nygus said as if it weren't that big of a deal.

"What? She was-." I started but was interrupted by Dou running up behind us and putting both her arms around Black star and I.

"So Soul and Small Fry what else is there to do here?" she asked as the other girl started to go over to Maka and Tsubaki.

The door SLAMMED open. And in ran Death Scythe who was yelling.

"MMMMAAAAAAKKKKKKAAAAAAAAA!"

He got about halfway into the room before he walked over to nygus and started flirting with her, telling her beautiful she was. Until she reminded him that Maka was in the room…in a bed…unconscious.

"Maka." He said becoming hysterical, again, pushing past Tsubaki to get to Maka. "Maka who did this to you I will destroy them-" he sobbed before he made eye contact with me. "You did this. I bet you were staring at some girls breasts when this happened to her weren't you!"

"As a matter of fact…NO I WASN'T. Well not when this was happening." I said sarcastically " and what about you. You couldn't make it what." I measured how many steps it took from the door to Maka at the speed he was going when he first entered. Five steps. "Five steps before you got distracted by Nygus. No offence." I said that last part to Nygus.

He cut himself off when he started to speak and went back to telling Maka comforting thing that she wouldn't remember as she slept.

After a minute of this as none of us wanted to ruin whatever moment he was having. He spoke up again.

"Soul I need you to accompany our two guests to Lord Deaths room."

"Sure." I said as I walked in between Dou and Tao and put my arms around there waists, as they were about eight inches taller than me, and walked out of the room leaving a jaw-dropped D. Scythe, Tsubaki still looking over Maka to see if she could help out, and a angry looking Black star.

"Sorry bout that. I just wanted to see his face when I did that." I said once we shut the door and rounded the corner.

"Don't worry about it. Meow." Tao said in a cheery voice.

Dou on the other hand had a mischievous smile for a split second before she pulled my head into her cleavage and moved her mouth right next to my ear, once she pulled me back out of course, and in a husky whisper started.

"You know. I wouldn't mind if we went somewhere more private. That old ginger never told us when we had to get to that room."

"…"

With my face beet red and unable to speak you could literally hear the ellipsis. It was then that both of them started laughing like mad until they were on the floor, out of breath, or crying but it looked like all of the above. They continued laughing until a teacher from one of the NOT classes whisper screamed to "SHHHHHHH" with her head out the door. Both girls stopped for about five seconds looked at each other and started laughing again with much vigor. So, I started dragging then by there hoods until we made it to the Death room. By this time the girls had finally stopped laughing but still wore their face splitting smiles.

Death was waiting for us as he always was, which was him having his back to us while he look at his mirror, and turned around to greet us.

"Awe, hello. Hello and whom might you two be in my wonderful abode." He greeted warmly as he does to every one.

"Taokaka, meow." "Doukaka, sir." They said respectively.

"Well it does look as if you have made the best of your time here at my academy. Although I must ask that you return Soul Eaters motorcycle keys, if you would."

Upon hearing this I searched my jacket pocket and found that sure enough they were gone. I waited for Dou to hand me my keys by was surprised when Tao unzipped her hoodie halfway, reached in and grabbed my keys from an inside pocket or something, and tossed the keys back over to me.

"So, Mister Death-" Dou started.

"Please just Death."

"Okay. So, Death how did you know that we stole his keys I checked the coast and it was clear."

"Well if you look behind me you will see the answer-" Death stopped and turned around to see Tao lying on top of the mirror half asleep

"G-get down from there this instant" death said calmly as Dou was snickering behind him now.

"Tao is tired I'll just go to sleep Neow. Zzzzzzzz…" at this Dou started another laughing fit as Death looked like he was losing his patience.

DEATH STOMP. Death said as he shook the ground making Tao fall off the mirror and landed on her butt and was picked up by her hood and placed next to the still laughing Dou.

"Now if we could 'sigh'" Death began but his voice was drowned out by Dou's laughter. DEATH CHOP. Instead of laughter the room was now filled a soft whimper. Tao apparently found that as funny and started to snicker until Death raised his hand for another death chop. It was then that she stopped.

So…Uh. Do you need me for anything else." I said getting tired of sitting around.

"Oh yes, but in a moment. Now where was I? Oh yes. Now I would like to know why you to are off the reservation and in my city." He said

"Well." They both started. They looked at each other until Tao took a step back allowing Dou to start her tale.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN so guess who had a whole week of no internet and free time**

* * *

Flashback

I was sleeping in a small one room shack made of rusty tin and rotted wood that sat upon a rundown apartment complex in the slums of LA. I awoke screaming, a normal occurrence when ever I sleep.

"What's wrong? Are you okay?" a little orphan girl ran inside to see if she could help.

This part of LA was hit hard by the depression that happened after the government tried and failed a complete overhaul on the drugs that engulfed the state after some 'softer' drugs were legalized. The once fable city of Los Angeles became another Chicago with poor neighborhoods, poverty stricken sections, and a crime rate that horrified millions. Orphanages were the first to go sadly as the money that was given to them was then given to fund the overhaul. Millions lost life long jobs as huge corporations vanished to escape the cataclysm. The youth coveted the chance at Anarchy, which you could barely see if you lived there long enough.

"Yes little one I am fine, or as fine as I'll ever be." I told her. She was about five years old when the orphanages kicked her to the streets and by now had to be nine. She had just enough street smarts to become a scavenger and had just enough luck to not get caught. She wore three-year-old clothes that were torn, bloody, and ripped just about everywhere. She also had raven black hair that reached her shoulders and bangs that hide her reddish brown eyes, and she stood about four foot six. She was unhealthily skinny with what parts of her stomach you could see were receding into her ribs and ribcage. By LA standards she was doing well for herself.

"Then why is it that I always find you waking up yelling for someone to stop." She said trying to climb into the dirty mattress, that we stole from a homeless man about two blocks away, with me. It was fine, besides it had snowed a little due to it being in the middle of winter.

"Do you want me to sugarcoat it or do you want the truth Scout?" I said as she finally got situated under the six layers of bed sheets, couldn't find any actual blankets, and looked across to me seeming the think it over.

"I like candy so give me some sugar. Why are you laughing?" She said as I snickered at what she said and waved off the question.

"Well I find it exceptionally hard to stay focused on any of the runs we make or the jobs I get hired to do because of a nagging voice that seeps into my train of thought, and when I go to sleep that voice has free run of what my dreams are which is usually me doing things I wouldn't ever dare to do until it's to much and I wake up in sweats." I said in a slight sarcastic voice.

"Ohhhh. So what was the truth?"

"That was the truth silly. We don't have any candy…" I pause until we laughed until we both were crying from the laughter. It wasn't that funny but it helped pass the time.

Once we were done laughing I looked outside and saw it was probably six in the morning, as the sun wasn't accounted for. Wait, the gears in my head started turning and I noticed that she walked in here. Meaning that she had been doing a job tonight.

"So what did you steal tonight? And no fibbing." I said as I got the lighter fluid and a box of matches to start a morning fire so I could cook some year old expired Chief Boy-R-Dee for breakfast.

"Rather than tell you, I'll show you tonight. It will be a big surprise."

Now I had been living here for a year and a half and that whole time had been with Scout. We pretty much became sisters and I wouldn't have had it any other way. So, about six months ago I stole a whole shopping cart worth of candy the night before her birthday and had a party with her, Diz, whom was shot to death while trying to steal a car two months ago, and I. so I guess she was doing something nice for me. 'Hmm I wander what it's going to be' I thought.

"Sure go ahead. But it better be fun." I laughed as she tried to get some sleep.

About an hour later I was running across rooftops to my employer, who was the police chief, to get another job lined up for tomorrow. I did odd jobs and killed a few crime bosses every now and then so Scout could live peacefully in her neighborhood without any corrupt cops beating people left and right.

"D-dou! Oh, um, hey w-what's goin on. Didn't think that I'd see you so soon today." My employer sweat dropped. Looking around suspiciously until he focused his eyes back at me. Now I knew he was crazy and I mean crazy as in he thought I an alien cat here to steal his Count Chocula. So I paid no attention to his demeanor.

"Any work?"

"Nope."

"Not even a little."

"Nope."

"Are you not going to let me leave and enjoy my day off?"

"Nope."

"Alright then till tomorrow's tidings I bring." I said as I ran out the door before he realized what I had said.

I ran across rooftops again until I saw a group of people on a large rooftop either staring at me, pointing and me, or laughing at me. 'How odd' I thought as I walked up to them.

"What's up." I said cheerily.

"…"

"Um, hello" I tried again.

"You're supposed to be dead." An older looking man in the back piped up.

"Why am I supposed to be dead?" I said sarcastically cocking my head to the side.

"Why," he snorted, "because three days ago someone you must have pissed off put a three hundred thousand dollar bounty on your head. And we very much appreciate you handing yourself over on a silver platter for us." As he finished about fourteen people all-holding baseball bats, brass knuckles, and fix-blades surrounded me.

"Ssssssooooo. I guess it's to late to just up and leave ain't it." I said tensing up making a plan for whom to take out.

As soon as the first man said a single syllable I attacked the one in front of me with a punch to the throat. Hearing the familiar crunch of his windpipe I pushed his head down and jumped into the air from his shoulder. I was on a collision course with a man with a bat who looked like he thought I was a baseball. I shot my boot out and it connected with the bat. I was able to use the bat to run half a step and slam my other boot into the man's jaw dropping him like a sac of hammers.

I shot around in time to block a knife that was close to cutting my hoodie. I grabbed his wrist and twisted as hard as I could until he dropped the knife and one of the bones in his forearm snapped and jumped out of it's skin, literally.

"Come now. Come now. Three down eleven to go. How about two on one this time." I laughed insanely as two from the group charged forward.

I jumped up as they closed in and spin kicked the bat out of the first ones hands and it slammed into the other ones head knocking him to the ground stunned. I hit the ground and felt the all to familiar feeling crawl up my spine.

'Hahahaha look at that one over there trying to _breath_ through something that doesn't work anymore. Did you really have to snap his trachea though.' That little voice laughed 'Now you see these people. You should let me fight them I promise not get a tiny scratch on the head of your chinny chin chin. _Pwease._'

"No." I said as I kicked that disarmed opponent off the roof to a collision course with the pavement six stories below, and grabbed the other, still stunned, opponent off the ground and threw him into the three people charging me. This knocked two down but the other one pressed on until I closelined him. I picked him up and faced him toward his 'pals'. I stared into as many of their eyes before I broke the kids neck and let his lifeless body hit the floor.

Six of them dropped their weapons and ran away or climbed down the building, with their lives. The others were three men and that old guy. The old man pulled out a revolver and cocked it.

"FINE! You can come out to play." I said as my vision faded until I could only see black. In this void was complete nothingness: no gravity, no floors, and happily no rules. At this point I imagined a table with six bowls of buffet food and some water. These things materialize in front of me and I dug in until I ran out of water 'waiter' I snickered as I just refilled it with ambient thought.

After I finished my fake, sadly, lunch I was pulled back to reality and was immediately horrified at what I saw. Blood, flesh, and bones were littered everywhere, as the only identifying parts of the bodies I could see were their severed heads impaled through the spikes of an old TV antenna.

In my bloody claws was the torn and ripped up leather duster that the old man was wearing, but in the inside pocket of said duster were two letters, one opened and one unopened. I looked at the opened one first.

_Dear Mike,_

_You will be in charge of the flunkeys in taking down the little pussycat. This is your last chance and if you fail, well let's just hope she kills you before we get our hands on you. _

_Sincerely,_

_M._

"Well dang. Guess I did him a favor." I said as I looked over the other letter. It was near identical to the other except for the huge Do Not Open and underneath that in bold lettering TO DOUKAKA.

After rereading that to make sure that it was my name, which it was, I broke the seal, which were two snakes in a circle eating each other's tail. When I opened it there was a letter and a business card. This letter was much harder to read as it was in fancy cursive but I made out most of it.

_Dear Doukaka,_

_If you're reading this that ensures us that you have won, but I have a dilemma for you. If you are here…who's at home._

I shoved the letter in my pocket and ran as fast as I could back to my makeshift home. 'Please no!' was the only thought that crowded my head besides the occasional "faster run faster' as I hopped gaps and flew over a multitude of garbage bags littering the rooftops.

I made it to my empty house; destroying everything to find any clues about the letters, with scout nowhere to be found. On the back wall was a message written in red.

_Who? Oh who?_

_Didn't even read the whole letter I wrote for you._

_Makes me want to cry._

I tore the letter out of my pocket and read the whole thing twice.

Dear Doukaka,

If you're reading this that ensures us that you have won, but I have a dilemma for you. If you are here…who's at home.

Well to answer that question before you run off back to your home and desperately try to find your friend I'll tell you that she has already been taken. So, as cliché as it sounds, if you ever wish to see her free you will take this business card and go to the nearest air force base and show it to someone. They will take you where you need to go.

The clock is ticking and if I was right and you ran to your house that leaves you with six hours if not you have seven and a half.

Good running,

M.

I took a moment to look at the business card. It had no name, address, phone number or writing other than a large M. and a crudely done drawing of an eye on the other side.

Shoving both the letter and the business card to my inside pocket and started to run to the only place in this city that still had any order, and planes. I ran for at least four hours till I made it to the gates and fell down from exertion. I waited for the first foot patrol, all of which pointed their rifles at me, to find me before I took out the business card and gave it to their CO from my position on the ground. He looked at it for all of two seconds before helping me up, dusting me off, and yelling at his men to stand down.

The CO was about six one with dark brown hair and sapphire blue eyes and was wearing a military uniform just like everyone else's.

We walked around the fence in silence, even though I tried my damdest to get a laugh out of one of them, until we reached the main gate. Upon seeing me the soldiers at the gate immediately aimed their rifles at me until the CO told them to stand down. We went to a parking lot just next to the gates where the CO dismissed his troops and opened the door for me. It was a very expensive looking blue sports car that had two flags on the hood, one was checkered and the other was red.

I just stood there not sure if I should get in the car. I mean right now I still could just up and run away but if I got in that car it might become impossible to escape…but this might be the only way to get Scout out of danger.

"You plan on standin there all day missis." The man said as he smiled warmly.

"No just thinking. I guess."

I got down into the flashy car as the man shut my door and walked around the car to get in the driver seat. As he hopped in he turned the engine making it practically purr around me.

"First time in a sports car?" the man said teasingly noticing the anatomy defying smile I got when he started the engine.

"You might want to buckle up."

As soon my buckle clicked the speakers started blaring the low thump of a guitar string. He was just getting out of the parking lot before he slammed the accelerator as the song started to get into it.

_Meg, look at this place_

_This place looks like a mansion!_

_It's like a mansion, look at all this stuff!_

_Look, I see something over there._

_We got you here selling rag and bone_

_Bring out your junk and we'll give it a home_

_A broken trumpet or a telephone_

_Ah, come on, come on, come on_

_Come on and give it to me._

I was grinning ear to ear as he drifted every tight corner, barely scraped the side of the sidewalk, and passed ten cars stopped at a red light by driving into the oncoming traffic lane. He shot through the intersection barely missing getting clipped but a dump truck.

_It's just things that you don't want, I can use em__  
__Meg can use 'em, we can do something with 'em__  
__We'll make something out of em__  
__Make some money out of 'em at least__  
__(This fits me perfect, give it to me)__  
__Hey, if you ain't gonna use it just give it to us__  
__We'll give it a home_

_Well, have they got something shiny for me?__  
__Anybody got a Christmas tree?__  
__Can you part with a toilet seat?__  
__A jump up, a jump up, a jump up__  
__Come on and give it to me__  
__Rag and bone_

We drifted another corner and sped through another red light until we got to an empty six-lane intersection where he did a couple donuts before taking a right and speeding the opposite way through a one-lane road. As soon as the first car was seconds from hitting us head on he jumped onto the empty sidewalk and then got back onto the road as soon as we passed said car.

_Lots of homes we ain't been to yet  
On west side, the southwest side  
Middle-east, rich house, dog house, outhouse  
Old folks house, house for unwed mothers_

_Halfway homes, catacombs, twilight zones  
Looking for techniques, turntables to gramophones  
So take a last lick of your ice cream cone  
And lock up what you still wanna own  
But please be kind  
(Take your time)  
And don't rewind  
(It's fine)_

We where nearing a multi-level parking lot with a circular sloped incline for cars to get from level to level as he jerked the E-brake and started the longest drift I had ever seen on that spiral incline. I was having the time of my life and laughing my head off as my whole body was sucked into the door by the G-forces. It finally stopped when we got to the roof some six stories up. He parked the car next to the elevator and let the last of the song ring out.

_Oh, your pretty little rags and bones  
Come on, come on, come on  
Come on and give it to us  
Yeah, ay, ay, oh yeah_

_Yeah, yeah  
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah  
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah  
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!_

"THAT WAS AWESOME." I bellowed as he turned the key off and we stepped out of the car.

"I'd love to give you the dime tour but we got to get you situated"

"Oh yeah. What are we suppose to be doing here?" I said as we got to the elevator. I clicked the down button.

"We are supposed to take you to transfers were we will contact the person on that card and find out where we're going to be shipping you. Most of the pawns she uses to get people out here get released and go about their lives." He said trying to warm his hands up by breathing in them and rubbing them together.

"So where am I going and who is 'she'? Is it the person on this card?" I said as the elevator finally DINGed and we stepped inside. He pressed B1 and stepped away from the buttons. I didn't waste time running my claw down all the buttons making us stop at every floor.

He sighed in defeat.

"I don't know where you're going yet and dismiss what I said about 'she'. It doesn't matter anyway. Oh, and by the way the names Nonamé." He said as we hit the second floor.

"Hmm. That name sounds like you just put no with name and put a funny symbol on the E." I said spelling his name in my head.

"And you would right. Actually I had amnesia when I was in a car crash as a kid that killed both my parents. They had no way of finding next of kin, so on my medical charts where it said patient all it read was no name. Well they had a typing error missing the space so it just read noname. A new nurse looked at the charts and read it as if it were my name and it just kinda stuck I guess." He finished as the ding of the elevator told us that we were two stories underground

When we got out of the elevators I saw that it was a little room with two doors opposite to us. The first door had the word clean written across the top while the other had the word processing.

"Here I need you to go through that door, and I will be going through this one. At the other end we will meet up okay?" he said pointing me to the room labeled processing.

"Okay. What can I expect?" I said as I put my hand on the doorknob.

"Contraband check. That way you can't easily blow up the plane while we're flying." He said entering the door and closing it behind him.

I walked to the door he just went through but it was locked. Cursing I put my hand back on the knob of my door. 'Take it like a Band-Aid' I thought and slammed into the room ready to fight the ambush that appeared to be a Hispanic woman in her sixties wearing a medical coat. She was siting behind a desk giving me her best deer in the headlight expression.

Using my tail to close the door I walked up to her and apologized for bursting in like that.

"Oh it's fine my darling now shall we begin?"

"Lets."

"Okay to start out I need you to place everything you have on your person that isn't you or your clothes on this table. Don't worry they will all be safe as kittens 'till we're done."

"Okay" I said. I walked over to the table and began emptying my pockets. First were the letters and the business card. Then went a couple of fixed blades along with two rolls of half-dollars. After that was the only picture of my sister and I when we were younger. Lastly was the revolver that the old man had on the roof along with one speed reloader with only five rounds in it, the sixth was missing.

"I think that's everything." I said as I researched my pockets one last time.

"Alright now if you could come over here behind these curtains we can finish this up." She said drawing back some curtains, effectively cutting the small room in half.

"Why with the curtain?"

"Look over in the top corner of the room behind the curtain." She said while pointing.

I peeked through the curtains and saw a surveillance camera. Its red light flashing occasionally telling me that right now someone could be watching. That made me think of a question while I walked back over to the nurse.

"So what's with the non preying eye? What are we about to do?" I said with suspicion visible in my voice.

"Well you're about to get in your birthday suit and I'm about to administer a cavity search." She said casually.

"…"

"…"

"Really. You're kidding right." I said beseechingly.

"Of course I'm messing with you. Here change into these robes and lay on the table. Be happy these things even have a hood on them." She said grabbing a robe from a shelf.

"About two years ago we got the X-ray in here. People were getting mad at the 'invasiveness' of our procedures, but the X-ray is better at finding things than these old fingers o' mine." She said wiggling her fingers as she left me to change by moving behind the curtains.

"…Yeah." I said as I slid into my birthday suit, after unbraiding my hair, and then into the robe and putting the hood over my head. The robe was quite large and on the arms went past where my claws would be by about a foot. After I pulled my hair outside the robe I chuckled as the free hair made a curtain in front of the robe down to my thighs.

I laid down on the table and told the nurse to come back in. as she walked in she pulled my arms and legs straight and moved my hair to the sides of my body. After that she positioned a really heavy cloth on my chest and told me not to move it.

"Okay now I'm going to leave the room and come right back. Should take only a second or two." She said and true to her word after a loud beep she was right back. She then grabbed the heavy cloth from my chest and put it back on the wall.

"Alright put your britches back on, we'll take a look at these X-rays, and you'll be on your way." She said going back behind the curtain to give me some privacy.

I got my clothes back on and put my hair through the loops. I started braiding the left part of my hair about to my belly button as I walked past the curtains and walked to the nurse, who was studying a black piece of paper with much interest.

"And then?"

"Well we know that you aren't hiding anything but…do you mind if I took a look at your hands 'er claws out side of your hoodie?"

"Why and yes I mind so lets skip show and tell." I said very harshly. Only family gets to see those areas and if that robe hadn't had a hood I would've done that x- ray in my hoodie.

""Oh, I'm sorry. It's just that the bone structure is extraordinarily developed for fighting. Double jointed, surrounded by thick muscle, and the tendons look smaller but appear to be unbelievably dense." She said apologetically at first but went on happily about the other stuff.

"It's fine I guess, so are we done here." I said as I started braiding the right side of my hair to about the level where I stopped with the left.

"Oh, yes dearie. You just need to pick up your possessions and head out that door." She said pointing to the door opposite to the one I came in.

"Thank you. T'was fun…I guess." I said as I grabbed my belongings form the table, after I finished combining the two braids into a single larger braid, and walking through the doors.

"So how was it? Ju have fun." Nonamé said from a loveseat facing a plasma screen. The room was about twice the size of the impromptu clinic I just came out of, which wasn't saying much. Behind me was a duplicate of the doors where we split up at, just switched. Multiple computer servers lined the walls around the room with a door at the end of the room, although this one was made out of metal instead of wood. There was a loveseat and a recliner facing a table, which a folder and a can of soda were sitting atop, and a TV. Underneath all the furniture was a tasteful rectangular rug sitting on the steel colored concrete. Nonamé was wearing regular clothes instead of his military uniform and was lying back with his feet propped up on the table.

"Had a blast. Although I did get talked out of my clothes and into a bed by a smooth talking Hispanic chick in her sixties."

He spit out and choked on the soda he had got up to drink and sprayed the liquid onto the folder and table. While coughing he jumped over and gabbed the folder trying to dry off the top by running it across his pants. After he stopped coughing and had the top of the folder effectively smeared, he started laughing hysterically while holding his sides. Finding his laughter infectious I joined in until we both couldn't breath and were hanging off each other for support.

"I've…been here for…six years doing this…but that's the first time…I have ever…heard." He continued between breaths but couldn't finish as a new wave of laughter struck us.

"It's good that she's taking the news nicely but it's about time that we start don't you think?" a friendly voice calmly said from the metal door, that was still open showing me a seemingly endless hallway.

As she shut the door Nonamé immediately became quiet. She walked passed us quietly and sat on the love seat. She wore combat boots with a large fixed blade slid inside the left, and she had arctic camo pants with a belt that had about seven clips attached on the left side. On the right side was a pouch for handcuffs and she had an ash colored Beretta 92F holstered to her right hip. She was also wearing a matching arctic camo combat jacket that was unzipped reveling a black tank top. Covering the bottom half of her face was an advanced looking rebreather. She had pale white skin, piercing red eyes, midnight black short hair, and stood at about five foot three inches.

"Actually I haven't told her yet. Dou you are going to be headed for the desert. There is a large city there that you will start living in. Once you get there you will be on your own to your own devices and we aren't positive when M. will contact you, but we know that she will be contacting you from this library." He said opening the folder up to show me pictures of the town and the library where I was supposed to be contacted at a later date. The girl started glaring at him when he said 'she' confirming my suspicions that he wasn't supposed to give that info out.

"We know that you won't be accepted there due to rebellions from the kaka reservations when humans tried forcing them out of their towns. So we advise you stay hidden whenever possible. We will be leaving-" he was saying before the girl cut him off.

"Actually you have been reassigned to the Lucifer project. I will be accompanying her this trip."

"Okay, you two will be leaving in about…an hour." He said looking at his watch for corroboration.

"Also we found the little girl they used to get you out here. You'll be able to say goodbye, just not where you're goin or where to find you." The girl said while examining a bullet from one of the clips of her belt.

"How long have you even been back here from your last haul? And if you're ganna be escorting her around at least give her your name." he said crossly.

"Well give me a minute No Name," she said teasingly

"I mean I just got back from the long haul up in Alaska literally like twenty minutes ago. It took me ten to move my equipment over, four to get over here, and six minutes to listen to you go over living arrangements." She said while moving over to where I was still standing until she was right in front of me.

"The names Christine Yamata but you can call me four eyes," she said extending her hand out for me to shake. I obliged and dwarfed her hand with my larger claws.

"Doukaka but you can call me Dou. So why do you let people call you four eyes?"

"Tale for another time. We need to get you on your way, so if that's it for now you can say goodbye to mister No Name here and we can get you moving."

She gave a mock curtsy and walked back out the door, but before she shut the door.

"Don't take to long though." She said with a suggestive wink.

"I fucking hate that bitch. Er excuse my French but I really don't like her. Anyway I'll be heading out now. So…if that's it I'll leave with a 'had fun scaring the crap out of you with my driving' but I think you had more fun than fear. So…goodbye." He said walking back to the door labeled CLEAN. I shot in between him and the door and gave him a bear hug, lifting him off his feet and forcing all the air out of his lungs.

"Don't think of it as saying goodbye, but as I'll see you again one day. I don't have many friends but I'd like to have the ability to call you a friend if you'd allow it." I said releasing him and giving him my warmest smile. We stood there for a minute just looking each other in the eyes.

"Aw, so cute." We heard from the metal door that was cracked open. Nonamé just sighed, drew me into another hug, and whispered in my ear.

"Make sure you keep that promise and I'd love to have you as a friend. And don't tell four eyes what I just said. It makes her mad when she doesn't know _everything_." We both laughed at that and he walked out of the room.

"Time to see your friend then head out okay." Four eyes said as walked passed the metal door.

"Sounds good to me." I said as we moved through the blank hallways. I say blank because all it was was hallway after hallway, door after door, without any differences except for the occasional ROOM OF so and so.

We walked in silence for all of thirty seconds before.

"So what did he say to you right before he left." She said as we made a left in the corridors.

"Exactly what I needed to hear." I said as she grew a shark's smile. 'Wait what did I just say…wow really set some bells ringing in her head,' I thought.

"So does this mean that a certain pussy cat is interested with someone?" she sang as we made a right.

"It's fine if it is a low life like him, but wouldn't you want someone who wasn't a complete loser and/or fuck up." She continued

'Don't get made at her, she's just making assumptions' I thought trying to drown out her voice.

She continued ranting on about people she'd dated and about other unimportant things until she finally hit a nerve of mine.

"He probably doesn't have anything down there in the first place am I right?"

"Wouldn't know, I'm not a big fan of all that business." I said trying to sound friendly, but at this point all I wanted to do was strangle her. The bright side, I know exactly why Nonamé hates this woman.

"Don't tell me you still have your V-card." She gasped

"My what?" I said cocking my head to the side. 'The hell is a V-card' I thought.

"WOW! I thought a girl like you who wore such skimpy clothing would have lost her virginity long ago-" she said but was cut off as I grabbed her by the neck and choke slammed her into the wall and let her fall to the ground in a heap. I picked her up, with one claw of her hair, to where her feet were a few inches off the ground but was at eye level with me. I cupped her chin so that she had to look directly into my blue eyes as I grew a devils smile. She squirmed a bit when I moved her ear right next to my mouth and nibbled on her earlobe.

"I do not discriminate against sexes, being BI and all, but most people can't last with a dominatrix sadist, like myself. Think about it we could have a sadomasochist orgy in this hallway right now, but I don't want blood splattered all over these nicely decorated walls. So if you don't want to scream my name until you can't make out a single thought that doesn't included me, you, a wooden pony, and a lot of open flesh wounds I suggest that we continue without further complications yes." I said in a voice so dark that I think I heard her whimpering. I let go of her hair and she crumbled the floor before answering.

"Y-yes mam." She said as she was about to get up off the floor from her back, but my boot pressing down in-between her breasts stopped that cold.

"Please if you're going to use formalities use 'mistress' instead. A woman in control or power, I always enjoyed that definition." I said as I took my boot off her chest and offered her my claws, which she shakily obliged to.

I'm not gonna lie but after that I felt great and did something that I hadn't done in years. I started humming a tune I used to sing with my sister before we were put on separate reservations. Noted that it was she that wrote the song, and all the words consisted of meow but I still hummed it.

We made it though the labyrinth of hallways in utter silence and Four Eyes wouldn't even make eye contact with me until we made it to another elevator. As she pressed the button to call the elevator I saw her chancing glances at me.

"What is it? You may ask if you wish to or if I allow you." I said still on a high from our experience in the hallway.

"I was just wandering what a sadomasochist relationship was is all." She said with a sigh.

'No freaking way' I thought as the elevator dinged and we got in.

"It is a relationship that involves a sadist, who is someone who gets pleasure from inflicting pain onto others, and a masochist, who is someone who gets pleasure from receiving pain. All in all it's not that bad if both parties are willing to go farther than they usually do or farther than they have ever gone before." I said as the elevator doors closed and again I ran my claw over all the buttons.

"Why do you ask me this?" I said getting really close to her and wrapping my hand around her stomach. The door dinged open reveling a nerdish looking man about to get in. I kicked him back out and slammed my free hand into the close button leaving a large dent in it.

"Where were we? Oh yes. So why?" I said into her hair. She was lightly squirming but couldn't get out of my grasp. I lifted her chin up and looked her in the eyes, her face flushed red, and with my free claws I cut her cheek under her eye in a straight two-inch line. I would just leave something that she would always remember. She was about to gasp but I covered her mouth with my other claw and pushed her up against the wall.

"DAM! Four Eyes never seen this side of you." A man in an arctic camo suit with a hood and full facemask said as the elevator had opened on the final floor. Four eyes just tried to say something but my claws were still over her mouth.

"What was that love we couldn't hear you?" I said wiping as much blood off her face and letting her go. After that I walked over to the man, put an arm around his shoulder, and assisted him in looking at her for her words or explanation.

"I said we are here so we should get going and fuck you Vector." She said rubbing the continuous trickle of blood that was coming out of her face. I looked the man named Vector in the eye visors before we started laughing like mad. Four Eyes just waited for us to tire out…and waited…and waited…and waited until you could see the vein in her neck bulging out. It was at this point that she took out her pistol and commenced to pistol-whipping the buh-jesus out of vector and I. she grabbed me by the collar of my jacket and forcing me to my feet roughly and shoved me away from Vector.

"Look who turned the tables! May I have another smack mistress Four Eyes!" I shouted back down the hallway to Vector as we erupted in another laughing fit as I lost the strength in my legs and was having trouble trying to breath. As many people were sticking their heads out of their doors to see what the commotion was, Four Eyes gave out a long suffering sigh and started walking off without me. I noticed this and grabbed one of her ankles making her look back at me.

"I'm sorry… I'll come quietly" I said in between breaths and while trying to get my legs under me.

"If you know what she means." Vector said in all seriousness making the both of us bust out laughing once again as we followed a very pissed off Four Eyes. Vector and me kept cracking jokes until he bid farewell and went down a different hallway leaving Four Eyes and I in a silent state.

"So how long till we get there Love." I said as I put my arm around her shoulder.

"First off don't call me love, second quit acting friendly if you don't mean it, third really don't call me Love, and fourth now." She said as we walked through a double door into a room that looked like a prison visitor yard.

This part of the facility used to be a visiting yard for the families who had their loved ones here. In short this is the visiting yard for the old military prison. If you'll look to the back right you'll see your friend." She said and tried to sneak to the wall until I was done with my friend. I snipped that at the bud by wrapping my arm around her waist and walking her over to where I saw Scout.

"Dou did you really go there with this woman. You must have had the time of your life if you let Dou mark you. That or you're just a huge masochist." Scout said to Four Eyes, who looked confused and embarrassed.

"Mark what kind of mark. Did you do something to my clothes Dou?" she said looking over her clothes for any abnormality until she saw Scout giving me a 'are you shitting me' look.

"What did you do to me Dou?"

"Nutten."

"Nutten ay. Girl have you seen your face?" Scout said pulling out a steel bowie knife with mirror like reflection on the blade, and walked over to her then handed her said knife.

Four Eyes looked at her reflection and shrieked when she saw that the cut on her face was gone leaving a doted black and orange line under her left eye.

"Dou did you really do it with that?" Scout said in disbelief as Four Eyes ran to the wall that had a mirror and grabbed a bottle of water and scrubbed furiously to get the mark off her face to no avail.

"With Four Eyes hell no I just scared the crap out of her two time and embarrassed her continuously on the half hour over here." I said chuckling as she started redoubling her efforts to remove my mark by letting a girl dressed similarly to her with the exception of a machete on her person and a full sized gas mask that covered her face.

"You know the name four eyes is only giving to those who wear glasses right?"

I nodded.

"Okay so how was your day." Scout said and I spent the next ten minutes telling her the events of my day, leaving out the part where I brutally murdered eight people, until I got to where we were now. She chuckled until I told her that I was going to be leaving and not coming back for a while.

"I know that's why I was stealing from this very base last night. You see this pink haired girl walked up to me three days ago and told me to make the best of these three days because you would be gone after that. Well I always saw you looking at that picture of you and your sister so I spent those days looking for a picture of us together. Well one thing led to another and I got a picture from a surveillance cam with both of us together from the intelligence office here." She said as she handed me a still frame from when her, Diz, and I robbed a car dealership. It showed us in an old blue '13 Camaro with white stripes smashing through the display window of the dealership with many off the offices in the back on fire. The picture was so much more epic than what happened next which was us slamming the car into a police cruiser that was parked about a block away. We cheesed it and got away after running away nonstop for three hours each, but unfortunately Diz got cornered and…well I already told you.

"I got it for you so you wouldn't forget us…when you left-ACK!" she choked loudly as I hugged her with all my might. Every one in the room was looking at us as I let her go.

"It doesn't matter where I go I will always remember family. I don't need a pretty epic picture to remind me of our times together. I have the knowledge that I was able to live with you two in the ashes of a once great city for as long as I could. Family's family and I will always remember you. You keep that photo in our house until I get back and remember everything I taught you about fighting and sneaking so I can find you okay." I said staring into her eyes and unknowingly had drew a crowd of people who were saying things like 'awe, that's nice, I hope they meet up again, cute, and YOU FUCKING BITCH...' you could hear Four Eyes in the background, probably noticing that the mark was permanent. Scout and I started a quick whispered conversation.

"She's walking over here isn't she?"

"Yep."

"Does she look pissed?"

"Oh yeah. Extremely."

"Think I should let her hit me in the face to make her feel better about the whole tattoo thing."

"Probably."

"You want to get her in trouble with everyone here?"

"You talking about mommy issues?" Scout smiled.

"But of course. You know the drill."

We had a long hug and separated. I remained facing Scout, who was pretending to grab me something out of her bag on the table. I waited for the inevitable ass kicking that was now at a full sprint on a collision course with my body. Slam! I was knocked off my feet and tackled into a table. Four Eyes began to smash her fist into my face repeatedly as some of the bystanders tied to get her off of me. They finally pealed her off of me, barely, as I started shaking in the fetal position. At this point Scout ran over to me crying and tried to pull me into a sitting position while bordering on hysteria over if I was okay or not.

"W-w-why w-would you do something l-like this to m-mommy. All sh-she ever w-wanted to do was help." She said sobbing into my stomach. I shakily got up and had to be supported by Scout as I faked a really bad limp. I made ten steps before falling again on the ground. In a matter of seconds I had half the room trying to comfort me and the other half trying to kick Four Eyes's ass.

"Don't worry about it she knows not what she does. I should be all right, but I must tell you, Scout it was my fault. She obviously didn't want me following her. All I tried to do was…help." I said tearing up and looking away from everyone as everyone there immediately took the chance to glare daggers at the girl getting thrown through the double doors, that we came in, by the other half of the people in the room. I pulled Scout into a hug so I could talk to her.

"You think we went to far?" I said as you could hear a lot of people cursing past the double doors about 'why did you do that' and ' the fuck is wrong with you'.

"Yeah… we may have ruined her reputation at this place. Oh well guess we should stop while we're ahead."

"True. I WILL see you again one day so stay alive for me okay." I said as I cracked most of the bones I could and stood up to give her one last hug before I handed her the pistol that I grabbed off the old man along with the reloader.

"Only use this if you are in dire need yes." I said as many of the people around me gasped as I had just handed a nine year old a loaded fire arm.

"Yes mistress till tomorrows tidings you bring." She said stuffing the pistol in the back of her waistband and going over to her backpack. She finished packing up what she had left and joined me in walking out the double doors. The second I stepped out the doors I had the pleasure of seeing Four Eyes with the other girl from earlier. They were sitting on a bench next to the double doors and Four Eyes was sporting a very cold bag of peas on the right side of her face.

"That wasn't very nice of you getting my friend here in a fight with half a room of people you know." The girl with the machete said playfully. She had a Russian accent.

"When an opportunity comes in, to not take it would be a sin." I said as her Scout and I chuckled lightly.

"Just try not to do it again. Hey Scout if you're ready I'll take you home." She said taking Scouts hand and led her down the hallway.

"You ready to move out. If I am any where near right I'd say we got about…ten minutes before we leave on a plane or something." I said cheerily as you could readily see her seething.

"Right this way _mistress_" she said through clenched teeth.

We walked to another endless hallway in silence. Then we went through some stairs in silence, and then to a black car waiting patiently out side the building…in silence. I sat in the right side and Four Eyes sat in the left. As soon as we go in the back of the black sedan Four Eyes tried to hit me in the face with her right hand, which I grabbed and pulled her whole body in to my lap.

"Look. I apologize for giving you a bad day. Hell you might go as far as to say it was a down right terrible day, but it doesn't matter who started this large string of catastrophe but I want you to know that I apologize and that I am a heck of a lot better at fucking with people if you hadn't noticed." I said as I tried to look her in the eyes. I got a small smile out of her at the end as she was still trying to be mad.

"I had little right to mark you but if you knew anything about kaka folk lore you would have known that it was an inevitability." I said trying to peak her interest in my story so she'd forget about the past hour.

"…So how was _this _an inevitability?" she sighed pointing to my mark under her left eye.

"Well long story short, usually never but when two of our species really love pne another they mark each other somewhere…" I paused as she grew a horrified look upon her face.

"…But the first two to do this had a falling out as one became distant and hostile toward the other. After about a year of this they tried to kill each other. When nether could finish the job they settled for being mortal enemies, giving the mark a different meaning. That meaning was to signify lovers or enemies." I said letting her try to figure out which one I had marked her for.

"… Sooo which did you mark me for?" she asked neutrally. I thought back to an answer she had given me.

"Tale for another time." I said with a shit-eating grin. She just laughed as she got out of my lap and back into her seat.

"…Would you like to know?" she said spaced out looking out the window.

"Would I like to know what?"

"Why they call me Four Eyes."

I looked out the window and saw that we were about to reach a large C-17.

"You're going with me on that plane right?" I said as I saw the fuel trucks detach the black hoses from underneath the wings and start driving away. It was at this point that another black sedan pasted us going away from the plane.

"Yes, guess I might as well tell you there right?" she said sounding conflicted about telling me or not.

We arrived at the plane and were escorted onto it through the back hatch. There wasn't mush in the cargo bay, a few crates all tied down, a Humvee locked in place with some chains, on the walls had many cargo nets loosely hanging making crappy see-though walls, along the walls of the plane were many seats, and right next to where the control room sat was a very timid looking pinkette sitting by herself. I pointed at the pinkette to Four Eyes, who shrugged in response.

We chose our seats on the opposite of the pinkette. She was wearing a black…robe I guess, which had three white cuffs that reached the middle of her forearms, and had on black shoes. She had pink hair if you didn't notice all the hints and dark purple eyes that bordered on being black with white pupils. She looked up to see who had come onto the plane and shot her head down when she saw the both of us, muttering about dealing with something.

'look at how timid she is' that voice said 'bet her blood is pink too'. I shook my head to dislodge the voice to some avail and saw that the pinkette wasn't and wouldn't look back over to where we were. 'Light bulb.' I thought as I put a claw over my lips telling Four Eyes to be quiet. After she nodded I started climbing the metal skeleton of metal support beams that ran across the ceiling of the plane until I was upside down with my face right next to pinkette's ear.

"Boo." I whispered into her ear.

"AAAAAHHHHHH!" she screamed and was behind a locked down set of crates within a millisecond. After locking my feet into the support beams so that I wouldn't fall I pointed and laughed at her.

"A spider cat girl I can't deal with that" I heard in a voice that sounded like a mix between male and female, but still more female, come from where she was behind the crates. I got untangle from the wall and snuck around the crates to introduce myself but Four Eyes had already beat me to the punch.

"So she's not a monster?" the girl said when I got close enough to hear the end of their conversation.

"No no no. She's just a terrible person."

"Hey I resent that." I said as I rounded the crate and saw the pinkette hiding herself from me behind Four Eyes.

'You know…you always wanted someone uncontrollably timid to date remember...or was it dominate?' The voice continued until I face clawed and started glaring in no particular direction. I was brought out of my revere when I focused my vision and realized that I was glaring at the pinkette who was whimpering.

"Oh sorry I was thinking about something else. Didn't mean to glare." I said extending my claws to help them both up, which both obliged to. With both their hands in my claws I took them to the front of the plane again. After we all sat down together I notice that the pinkette was blushing as she was sitting in between Four Eyes and I.

"So my name is Doukaka May I have yours?" I said warmly as she just sat there.

"I won't bite promise." I continued as Four Eyes snickered until my tail slapped her lightly in the back of the head.

" **Mumble** "

"What was that I couldn't hear you."

"C-crona"

"Well Cucrona it's very nice to get acquainted with you." I said as the gate on the back of the plane closed and the lights flashed for us to buckle up.

The plane started lurching forward every second or two making Cucrona whimper ever so softly. About a minute later the plane stopped completely giving the girl a peaceful look upon her face. That mask of hers was shattered as the plane sucked all three of us to toward the back abruptly. For the next three or four minutes Four Eyes and I had fun playfully screaming 'AAAAHHHHH' or 'the planes goin DOWN!'. About when the plane finally leveled out and the lights went out for the buckle up sign, we both tied to calm Cucrona down from having a heart attack.

"We're sorry Cucrona it was just fun to tease you a little." I said coming back from the cockpit with two brown paper sacks and handing one to Cucrona.

She started breathing in and out of the bag, but before she could inhale I clenched the end of the bag she was breathing through and slammed my claws into the other end of the bag making a loud **BANG**!

"Annnnnnd now I'm done." I said to the hyperventilating Pinkette, handing her the other bag that I had grabbed.

After twenty or so minutes of flying we had comforted Cucrona back to a stable condition.

"Sooo Cucrona why are you in this Shuttle?" I asked happily.

"**Mumble**"

"Um…well Cucrona I am being escorted to a desert town by my friend here."

"M-my names Crona." The pinkette said so softly that her voice felt, that's right felt, like velvet.

"Oh…s-sorry about that…so um…what's a cute girl like yourself doing here." I said stumbling over my word at my screw up. I keep chastising myself until I noticed the lack of soft words. I looked over at the pinkette who was glaring softly at me. ' Error made…CUTE. Fuck shit backpedal, backpedal."

"Oh um I didn't mean cute I meant…uh…pink. Yeah that's it I don't see many girls running around with pink hair." I said only to make the glare intensify before it vanished and she began looking like the picture for depression.

"d-do I really look like one?" she said looking at the floor. I looked to Four Eyes who shrugged in response.

"Look like what? If you're talking about something ugly I can assure you that you aren't."

"Do I really l-look like a…g-girl?" she said, her face lighting up just a bit.

"Of course you do if you were trying for a boy you lost the race at the dress." I laughed as the pinkette stared at the floor for a bit longer. I glanced over her to Four Eyes who's eyes were shoot open wide as if seeing an epiphany.

"HEY! Dou you still want to know why they call me Four Eyes?" she said interruptedly.

"I'd love to. What about you Crona want to here a story?" I asked her, although she was still looking kind of depressed.

""S-sure." She said emotion voided but she still sounded like velvet.

"Well when I was five my father past away now I didn't know much at that age but he was my world…and he was the only reason that my mother couldn't get her claws into me. After his passing my mother wanted his life savings that he had left to his only daughter, me. She went to court to adopt me so that in the long run she could get into that account. Well I was adopted by her and thrown into an inner-city school where I always came home with a different bruise on my body. But did my Mother care…no. She finally had enough of my coming home and trying to motivate her to do something to ease my torment." She paused and snickered evilly.

"This will keep her complacently silent for you, they told her as they handed her the pills that effectively ruined my life. RITALIN, the super drug that they give to bad little boys and girls. Shit. I'm rambling. So here I am little six year old given a drug that slows down your head to were you are border-line genius at the cost of all your social skills and friends, not that I had any. Gave me time to plan, and what would a little girl plan to stop all the fighting? Easy, destroy the competition." At this point her voice got **dark**.

"Train, fight, win, learn, this was my motto. Every day I did hundreds of push ups, sit ups, and pull ups. I ran five miles every morning and two every night. I lost all interest in school just so I could beat the crap out of all the people who tormented me…I must have put thirty kids in the Critical Care Unit. Everyday after school I went to the library to read medical books on the easiest ways to **kill** people. Until, I found this fun little thing called virology. **he he he**. I learned how to make pipe bombs by age seven, homemade flash bangs by age seven an a half, and after meeting with a Muslim immigrant, who turned out to be a terrorist, everyday I learned to make low-grade bioweapons" she looked out the window before continuing.

I must have killed half the tri-state area at the age of **eight**. Unfortunately my mother died and I became deathly ill off my own weapon. I went home to administer one of the only vials of the cure to myself and then walked the empty quarantined streets admiring my work. One of the only drawbacks to my **cure** was that you would suffer temporary vocal paralysis. After three days of the government combing the streets, they found me alive and healthy sitting on top of a turned over semi truck. They asked how, how was I still alive with all this going on around me. I ran away back to my to my house at a slow pace, just slow enough for them to follow me but just fast enough that they couldn't grab me. When I arrived at my house I walked them to my makeshift lab and gave them the cure to duplicate. They took me with them to an army base to find a better cure with the help of my cure and my blood. They let me have full run of their libraries, after a couple of days of pleading. About two months later they found the six shives, three pipe bombs, about seven pounds of homemade TH3 Thermate, and a half constructed smoke bomb on the room I was given. they put me into a training program that specialized in making killers out of children. Guess I was already there huh, but that's besides the point." She started looking back to us with a great poker face.

"There were six of us, Dou you met two of them besides me, which were sent on missions. Nothing dangerous, seeing that we were just children well except for Lupo, just scouting and intelligence. The whole time I was the brains of the missions as I could always answer any questions they gave us. Vector decided that I was too smart, and decided that my name should reflect my genius. Thus Four Eyes was coined. After four years I was stuck with the name and am fine with it." She said to the stunned Crona and I, but for the faintest second made a sullen expression.

"So let me get the run down. Your life sucked, you became smart, you got tough, you put a bunch of people in the hospital, you killed about three states worth of people, killed your own mother, had the cure the whole time, went to Disney Land, be came a government agent, and your name came from petty name calling? Got that right, right?" I asked running through what she had told us.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no, yes, and yes." She said still holding that poker face.

"You sound like a monster." Crona mutter so softly you could barely hear her.

"You know the fun part about being a monster?" she asked Crona in a sing song voice but didn't give her time to answer.

"You lose your sanity slowly, deterioration at its finest. You lose the ability to care about what makes sense. And sense…hell now where's the fun in making sense." Four Eyes laughed.

Four Eyes got up and walked next to the Humvee.

"Dou come here for a moment."

"Okay be right back Crona."

"O-okay."

I walked over to the Humvee and got into the passenger seat, Four Eyes was in the driver's.

"Really Dou. How freakin blinded are you?" Four said in a very pissed hushed voice while putting her hands over her eyes momentarily for emphasis.

"What do you mean I was only trying to make her feel better?" I said defensively.

"HER! You really didn't catch the multiple hints that pinkette through at you?" she said chastisingly.

"What do you mean she hasn't hinted anything? I would have known right?" I said still trying to figure out what she was talking about.

"Fine be daft I ain't got time for it." She said as she opened the door to leave. I grabbed her by the arm until she got back in the car.

"Do mind telling me what that was back there. You left something out in your little story. Something important. I know I could see it in your eyes." I said smiling and waving at the pinkette whom seem concerned that me weren't back by now.

"I just went over six years of events in the span of, what, twenty minutes. Of course I left something out." She said dismissively while also waving at Crona and smiled.

"So lets see I have fucked with you the entire time we've been together and if I'm correct we still have about two or three hours until we get to where we're goin…If you know what I mean." I said with a sharks grin.

"Fine you want to know. **Sigh**…I…I started the contagion…with my…my mom. I infected her when she let the men she dated strike me."

'whoops' I internally cringed at my ignorance.

"Lets leave it at the PG version okay. I don't feel like crying today…and besides now I can see how long it take you to figure out Crona's secret." She said squeezing my hand before leaving me in the Humvee. I pulled some slack of my hood to where it covered my entire face.

"Well let's ride the contingency. Besides what's the worst possible outcome." I said aloud to no one.

'you losing in such a spectacular way that the very thought of it will make you pissed off, gloomy, or border line suicidal.' The voice said with extreme sarcasm.

"Bitch"

'Cunt'

"Void"

'Pussy'

"Okay, okay lets stop, asshole, we should be headed out now." I said after a brief chuckle

'Then will you have' the voice paused dramatically before saying in a multitude of insanity riveted voices ' **FUN**'. Losing myself momentarily in the black void I came to still sitting in the Humvee, although all the bulletproof glass windows were cracked. Along with that the steering wheel was caved in, the driver seat was ripped to shreds, the quarter inch metal dashboards had four long slices running from left to right, and about sixteen certain clawed fist size dent in the ceiling. All in all I had to kick the door open to two very concerned girls running over to see if I was all right.

"What the hell was that" "A-are you ok-kay" they said arriving at the destroyed Humvee.

"Can we just forget about it? Just… lets go back over there." I said trying to get the girls to move away from my miniature ground zero without luck.

"Seriously? Bitch you just Chuck Norris'ed MY Humvee and you just want me to forget about it…Fuck it. It was free anyway, might as well get something better when I get back" she dismissed upon seeing my face. Crona was still looking at the car, which gave me enough time to apologize to Four Eyes behind her back.

"How did you do this? All we saw was you one moment and then shattered **bulletproof** glass the next." Four Eyes asked, as we all started moving back to the seats next to the cockpit.

"_Maaaaaggggiiic"_ I said waving my arms around getting a chuckle out of the two.

"Dumbazz" Four Eyes said playfully although I had already had enough insane bickering losing to that voice so I just agreed and started talking to Crona about her life. I found out that she didn't have a dad, apparently making us a trio as the kaka clan doesn't have fathers, she's fourteen, has a wonderful mother, who apparently doesn't force her into things at all, lived in a beautiful town that always had spring weather, but didn't have friends though. I think see lied a bit, seeing that the number of tells she had rivaled that of the numbers in Pie or 3.14~, but I didn't want to impose.

But in the long run I killed about two hours becoming friends with the pinkette. Until Four Eyes said that is was about time go.

"Where are we going? Aren't we going to be landing soon?" I said following her to the back of the plane after saying my farewells to Crona.

"…Well. How should I put this you see this backpack here? I want you to put this on. It's a little tricky so I'll help you." She said holding out a backpack that had about eight body straps.

"So why am I putting this on?" I questioned after the last belt was cinched around me. Her answer was for me to follow her over to the back of the plane.

"Now this is a special backpack. In that meaning, this backpack has the ability to save your life once. And only once. All you have to do is pull this cord with all your might…well not all your might, but enough to where you feel a pulling sensation. We are about to fly over death city okay." She said finding a lever on the wall.

"Really so why am I wearing it?" I said as she just smiled.

"Before I answer that do you want to see something truly beautiful?" she said putting her hand on the lever.

"Why not. S'the worst possible thing that could ever happen?" I said as she pulled the lever and the hatch on the back of the plane slowly creaked open. When it fully opened she harnessed herself to a rope and sat on the lip of the hatch as the air whipped past her. Not finding another harness I casually joined her, although I was pretty scared of falling to my death. When I finally looked at the great expanse of desert that we were flying over.

The dunes flowed endlessly in to waves of sand that gently caressed each other over the vastness of the desert. What areas that didn't have sand dunes were spotted oases that held giant ferns and small trees that gave the slightest cover from the sweltering sun above. Just to the right, next to a large mountain of sand, stood a city unlike anything I'd every seen before. The entire city was Gothic Castle like as it was circular and grew upwards into a point, and on that point was a magnificent structure made of skulls and candles. The picture of this landscape from thousands of feet in the air was to put it simply…breathtakingly beautiful. I wouldn't have any regret if this was the last thing I saw.

"Beautiful isn't it." She said just load enough for me to hear.

"Y-yes it is. It's breathtaking in a way." I said as Four Eyes stood up and walked back into the plane. I just sat there takin In the sights, that is until a red light started flashing in the plane. I stood up to check out what was happening but was stopped as Four Eyes placed her hand on my sitting form.

"Remember what I said about the bag." She laughed as I felt a foot sharply kick the middle of my spine, and just like that I was flailing like a fish out of water. The wind was howling in my ears it was hard to steer myself and I was dropping like a stone. I finally got control of myself as I could see the ground slowly get larger and larger. Thinking back to what she had said I quickly fumbled around for the cord as my lack of concentration landed me in another spiral. 'Found it' I thought as my claws finally felt contact with a pulley. All I had to do now was get control of my descent, which at this point was the earth doing 360s every half second under me. I maneuvered my body to counteract the spiral and finally gained control again as the earth was so close now. I pulled the cord with all my might and about fifty feet from the ground I felt a pulling action that knocked all the air out of my lungs. I didn't have time to complain sadly as a couple seconds later I slammed into the sand dune.

Now if you have ever had the fun of jumping off the sixty foot high High Dive at a swimming pool and doing a belly flop. That's the only thing that I can compare the pain to. I had slammed into the, debatably soft, sand dune probably going about twenty-twenty five and lost coherence of what I saw. At that point all I could do was sob and cry at the agonizing pain that was on a rampage in my abdomen and felt the slightest bit pissed off at Four Eyes for being an _asshole_. So without anything else to do I laid there for about two hours or so until a voice could be heard over the dune.

"Hello. Anyone here. I saw your parachute are you okay? Hello." A male voice was yelling just out of sight. I tried to yell out that I was here but my lungs flared in pain in response, so all that came out was more whimpering. I tried getting to my feet with no small effort, and stumbled to the top of the dune. It was a little boy probably five or six calling out for the parachutist that was me. He was calling out and facing away from me, but as soon as I lost my footing and fell to a knee he turned around and yelled out in terror. I had the time to look confused as he started running off in the direction of the Death city or whatever it was called. The sun was going down and I was confortable as I was lying on the ground. So I wrapped up in the parachute and went to sleep.

The next morning I was awoken to absolute bliss, not an ounce of my body hurt. I tried talking and my lungs didn't burn, I walked around no problem, and I got a bad feeling.

"Why did you fix me I don't want your help or to be indebted to you?" I said aloud.

'come now you can walk can you not, you can fight can you not, hell you could barely talk before I fixed you. Be grateful you unappreciative little twit. And besides I don't want anything for my services…yet' that voice said almost angrily. I don't think I've described its voice to you yet so imagine listening to your own voice intertwined with all of your brothers, sisters, parents, friends, and to top it off under all that a demonic sounding growl of a voice all mixed together and talking at the same time. Ominous huh.

"That's the problem you always end up forcing me to move towns when you WANT something" I said frustrated while finally taking off that backpack. Afterwards I climbed to the top of the dune again so I could get my bearings.

'There's the city we can talk about it there hmm.' The voice said before shutting it for the rest of the trip, which was only long and boring.

I walked up to the gates of the city and couldn't help but snicker. As soon as I showed up I had a dude wearing mostly black with black hair with a long sword try to attack me. I sidestepped it and slammed my fist into the back of his head effectively knocking him out. I didn't expect his sword to materialize a human and said human trying to wake his friend, but such is life.

I continued down the street, getting nasty glares from every person that past me, until I found someone who was willing to talk to me. That person turned out to be a little girl who had run off ahead of her mother and was crying. After assuring her that I'd help find her mom with her, I pulled out the picture of the old library, which she said she knew about. After she pointed in the general direction there was a loud scream from behind us, from the market district. The second I turned around I was slapped across the face by an irate looking women shouting.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING LEADING MY DAUGHTER AROUND YOU MONSTER!" she yelled a mere foot away from me while putting her daughter behind her for protection. The whole street was at a standstill trying to look at the turmoil that she had created.

"Madam I was only asking her a question but I think if you were a responsible adult and actually looked out for your kid instead of whatever it was you were doing, which wasn't that, she wouldn't have ever had the chance to talk to me." I said as the crowd started getting behind her. Out of nowhere I got hit in the side of the chest by a tomato, I couldn't see who did it seeing as pretty much every one here had a grocery bag. After that single throw, the floodgates had burst and I had everything within reach thrown at me from food to a shovel that almost hit me. I finally got to safety when I got into an ally and climbed to the roof. As I stood there I could help but curse the world out for such treatment, hell even in LA I was treated with the a little respect if any. Here they just hate our kind.

"Looks like someone had an eventful first day." I heard from behind me I didn't bother turning around seeing as I was covered in a mixture of fruit and vegetable juice with mud caked around in places. I just sat there on the edge of the building waiting for the man to leave. But my life sucks so he sat down behind me with his back to my back.

"You don't have to talk it's fine but at least heed my warnings. One, this town is going to hate you and there isn't a dam thing you can do about it, well if you changed your coat color maybe but I know you won't do that." He said as he put something down by his side. It was a little tan folder and I secretly stole one of the middle pages as he continued.

"Two, there is a good chance that the kids from the DWMA will try to kill you on sight so you'd best to stick to the night life and the shadows. And third, there is a restaurant about three blocks to your left that is the definition of perfect. So all the food that isn't perfect but still fine to eat would be in the dump around back around eleven or twelve at night." He said while getting up and grabbing the folder.

"The black coated kaka is a rare sight here seeing as the town threw them all out and had Death relocate them about two thousand miles up north, but what can you do…good luck with whatever it is that you are here for miss." He said walking away. I turned just as jumped off the roof but the only thing I could make out was a black overcoat.

"Hmm, guess it ain't all bad." I said thinking over what the mysterious man had just told me. I looked down and shuddered at the appearance of my clothes and how slimy they felt. Before I did anything about it I took a look at that peace of paper.

_So in conclusion while this would be a very good score for the boss I must tell you that it is a fool's mission. At the witch's house there is a man with a large soul. His name, body guard Mafune. He WILL kill you all before you can even touch the witch. So with this important information in mind I strongly urge you to call off the attack please sir._

_Sincerely,_

_Third team fourth_

"Huh must be nothing." I said as I climbed down the building and jumped into the fountain and cleaned what dirt and grime that I could off, which turned out to be all of it. I climbed back up to the roof, in my now soaked hoodie, and made my way to the library by rooftop.

I saw that the library was a complete wreck. Imagine a haunted house that was six stories high, that statement would be doing the building justice. There were decaying shrubbery around the buildings bottom creating a very 'unique' smell, while the building itself had a hole or two in the walls on each side at different altitudes. The outside looked slightly gothic with a mostly dull grey color.

I climbed up to each of the holes seeing if I could just live there while I waited for M. to contact me. There wasn't anything promising until I reached the third floor hole in the wall. It was a spacious room without any books on the water bowed shelves and the door was locked without any way to unlock it without knocking it down.

And thus began my stay of the Death city.


	7. Chapter 7

Duo

"And thus began my stay in Death City." I said finishing my tale, but leaving out the conversations on the plane, the voices, and the murders. But what can you do? Over the course of my whole explanation Tao and I had gotten Death Chopped multiple times when we started cracking up and even soul got one when I went into detail about Four Eyes. All in all the tale took about three hours to tell.

"Well then if that's your reason than I don't see any problem with you being here right now." Death said and then looked up with his mask and paused for a moment or two.

"Soul would you happen to know what time it is?"

"Um lunch?" Soul said and had obtained a scary look from Tao.

"My thoughts exactly. Soul would you mind taking these two to lunch, and afterwards I am going to need to talk with Tao there about her reasoning for being here." He said toward Tao who had snuck behind Soul and was carrying him towards the door talking about 'FOOOOD'.

"We'll be back **Mister** Death…hopefully." I said as his mask looked annoyed. I moved quickly towards Tao and the now walking Soul as they were halfway to the door out of this room.

"So what kind of food do you have meow?" Tao said salivating just a tad bit. We were about to exit the room just as that ginger guy burst through and bolted down the room leaving a small dust cloud.

"Well in the city we have coffee shops and all types of restaurants, but they are all kind of expensive. We also have the cafeteria, they have…well just about every thing you could ever dream of." He said with his toothy grin. That was until Tao tackled him from behind and somehow managed to land sitting on his chest.

"Every thing meow. So do they have Baozi, or Cha siu bao, or manju, or Xiaolongbao, or Siopao, or Jiao—" she said loudly into his face moving her arms around for emphasis, until I ripped her off of him by her hood. She curled up like a little kitten getting pick up by its mother and I laughed before I set her on the ground. Soul was just now getting off the ground and just watched us until we started moving again.

"To answer your question Tao…I have no idea what you just said or what those are, but it sounded a little Asian so yeah they probably have it."

"Yay! Tao's going to get to EAT meow." She said walking ahead a little bit and spinning down the hallway. Upon seeing this Soul sweat dropped.

"Don't worry about it. She does that a lot and there isn't much you can do to stop it. Just like this one time I told her, back when we were living together, that we could go to this feast a local church was having. She was so happy that she accidentally twirled into a freeway and caused a thirty-six-car pile up. She didn't notice and went home and I ended up saving a lot of ungrateful victims." I started laughing and looked to soul. I saw that he wasn't laughing and had a perplexed look on his face. I promptly stopped laughing.

"So when are we going to get to the—" "AAAAAAH RUN AWAY"

Soul and I look at each other before running down the hall Tao had gone down. We rounded the corner to find half a dozen kids with weapons pointed at Tao. I immediately got in front of Tao and got in a fighting stance.

"Hey no fighting! Not without a teacher present. We all know the rules. So lets just move on." Soul said walking past us like there wasn't a large-scale fight about to happen. He made a hole in the people, whom were gritting their teeth, and asked us if we were coming. I held a claw at the ready and grabbed Tao's paw with my other and cautiously made my way through the group of kids, who now that I think about it, looked really uncertain about the fight. After we got through the barricade of kids in the hallway and Tao waved goodbye to all of them, we continued with Soul down the hallways.

"So…what just happened?" I said after we got out of earshot of the kids.

"Well you just met some of the NOT class. That's what happened." He said getting his trademark grin back on his face.

"So what class are you in?" I said as Tao was singing her trademark meow song that seemed to be making soul mad.

"Well there are two classes of students here: the NOT, which are people how aren't ready to fight and are learning the ropes, and EAT, which are people like me who are cool like that." He said with pride.

"So you mean every one in the EAT class is self centered and obsessed with how 'co~ol' something is." I laughed, as he looked devastated.

"So again, hopefully without interruption, when are we going to get to the caf—"

"Hey! Soul what's up man how's it hangin?"

I stayed silent and watched the two convers until his friend asked me something.

"W-what?" I asked

"I said when did you get here? I haven't ever seen you before." He said with a smile. He had the same dark skin I had but had bulky white shoes, very baggy pants with a thick brown sash going from the front pocket to the back pocket, a white shirt with Grey shoulder flame designs, a bronze necklace that looked kind of cool, he had black eyes behind glasses, and corn rolls taken back into a ponytail. Behind his legs were a little girl and little boy that stood about two feet tall. They each had beige overalls, white shirts, and even their faces were identical. Chocolate skin with large blue irises and permanent blush marks. The only difference was that one wore a light yellow hat while the other wore a light orange hat.

"Oh…well I got here at the…I-I mean I had arrived with…I mean, this morning…I arrived here this morning."

"Well then, I hope to see you again…uh?" he said getting a confused smile.

"OH! Yeah it's Dou…Doukaka." I said erratically.

"Well then nice meeting you. And Soul stay cool bro." he said fist bumping Soul as he walked away with the two kids glancing back suspiciously. They took the next right and I turned around to come face to ground as Tao had been laying right where my feet were going. After she snickered, she helped me back to my feet.

"Jee Dou didn't know you got so friendly with new faces."

"No, she always had a soft spot for nyce guys, meow. neow isn't that right Dou."

"Always?" Soul asked with a grin in my direction.

"Yepper Tao remembers this one time meow. Dou went into town and saved this one girl from a whole bunch of bad guys and afterward would always spend time at that girl's house meow. Or this one time she saved this one guy from drowning and would always be hanging around him whenever I saw her meow. Or there was this one time—"

"OK!" I said before my whole life was put up for display.

"So how much longer till we get to the—"

"HEY LOOK!" Tao pointed behind us.

"Fucking let me talk dammit!" I yelled into her ear.

"How much longer till we get to the cafeteria?" I said exhaling everything I had in a sigh. Soul just snickered as he pointed where Tao had pointed. I followed his finger that faced a large opening in the hallway, which had a large CAFATERIA sign dangling, that gave way to a much larger room filled with food.

"Oh…yeah." I said looking at the floor. I saw Tao crouch down and move into my vision and look into my eyes.

"Tao's sorry come on lets go eat neow." She said standing up and putting an arm around Soul and I's shoulders and moving us into the cafeteria.

My first impression of the cafeteria was oppressive, seeing as all the tables were in perfect rows and food areas with lines that were meticulously giving students what they ordered. The food venders had their own stations. Italian over there, Japanese over here, and Chinese over yonder so on and forth, although it looked like every kind of food was made in this room. The walls and ceiling wore the customary white that all the hallways had been painted.

It was mildly entertaining to look at until I saw the people that occupied the place. In truth I think that the school was just like any normal school. I could clearly see the types of people grouped together. What I mean by that is if you really looked you could see patterns, like that group is fighters instead of jocks, those are the geeks who still looked like geeks, the self-absorbed or your preps, and that kid with the blue hair from earlier staring a hole into my skull from across the room, you know patterns.

"So… do we have free run of the place or what?" I said as you could hear a squeal from across the room. I looked over and saw Tao talking to both the Chinese and Japanese venders very animatedly, while throwing her paws everywhere. The venders looked contemplatively and one snapped his finger and said something. It looked like Tao was very happy as she started hugging him and walked off to his food area and picked up about six bowls of something.

"Well, follow by example" I said as I walked up to the Indian vendor and was immediately baffled by the twenty different types of spiced pork. I saw this girl with short pink hair picking something out, and I wanted to see what was good.

"Mam what do you thing I should get. There are just so many different options I just don't know." I said brushing up against her a little. She looked me in the eye and smiled lightly.

"Oh then you try this. It's very good and it's my favorite. Although you may need to get two bowls because one just isn't that 'filling'. If you know what I mean?" she said brushing up against me and winking as she left. I looked back at the vender to what she had pointed at. GOHST PEPPER SPICED PORK the sign read. 'Hope it isn't hot' I though right before I grabbed two bowls of the stuff. With a bowl in each hand I walked along the wall trying to find Tao.

"DOU! OVER HERE!" I heard from behind me. I looked and saw Tao, Soul, and about twelve different bowls of meat in rice and a tower of meat buns about four foot high. I walked past a couple people whom tried to trip me, to which I slammed my boot into their shins making them wither in their seats.

When I arrived at the table I saw that four of the bowls and a foot of the meat bun tower had been consumed. I also saw that Soul had gotten himself a quesadilla, a couple tacos, and a cup of black bubbly liquid. Tao also had a pitcher of bubbly water and a cup next to her. I put both my bowls down and noticed that I was missing my own cup and turned around to go get one.

I was stopped on the spot by the sound of something scraping across the table toward me. I turned around to see that Tao had an extra cup placed behind the bun tower and slid the cup over to me. As Soul was working on his taco and Tao was scarfing down her food, I started on mine. I started and…it was wonderful. I ate the first bowl quickly and started on the second. About halfway through the second bowl I stopped everything I was doing, as it was a little hard to breath. About two seconds later it felt like someone had put a hot coal in my mouth and forced my mouth closed. I shoved myself away from the table and started clawing at my tongue. When that didn't cool the flames that were getting hotter I gulped down the drink Tao had given me and it stopped the fire for all of four seconds, after which the flames came back with a force. I locked my eyes on the pitcher, as did Tao.

We both looked at each other as I lunged as hard as I could across the table to grasp the pitcher, but Tao was right there and was already running away, pitcher in paw. She was ducking and weaving as she was just out of reach. She made a quick left and I crashed into someone in a white coat but I quickly jumped back into the chase. Through the pain in my mouth clouding my thoughts I lunged one last time, tackling Tao. As we fell I grabbed the pitcher and by the gods kept it up right. I jumped away from Tao and immediately started running and drinking from the pitcher. You could hear the clinks and the clatter from Tao sprinting and jumping toward me.

**Clink** ten feet away.

**Smash **six feet away.

**Clank** three feet away.

I jumped onto a table and started running the length of it before jumping to another. When I was about halfway done with the pitcher I heard pouncing just inches away from me. By this time the flames had subsided and I was just seeing how long it would take for her to catch me. I stopped dead in my tracks and was immediately tackled hard from behind, making the pitcher fly out of my hand.

"TAG!" Tao said as we were laughing, and we continued laughing until you could hear heavy breathing through the nose. From our spot on the ground I turned my head to see what was happening and closed my mouth in a weak attempt to stop from laughing. Although, Tao wasn't as nice as I was.

"Why are you all wet meow?" Tao said to the girl who had given me the idea to get the spiced pork. Her head was completely drenched with her make up smeared in every which way, her shirt was also soaked and held tightly to her skin showing off her bra in detail, and her pants had wet areas here and there.

"Why? WHY? Because that dam stray threw that pitcher at me." She said absolutely seething.

"Actually…I think the pitcher was tackled at you." I said.

"Maybe the pitcher didn't want to be tackled towards her and we just forced it to be moved in her direction meow."

"True, but why would a pitcher want to be moved in the first place Tao? All they do is help people. You know they really don't get the credit that is their due."

"Maybe their family of cups live in a different cabinet and he wants to go home a see them meow." Tao said. We both looked back up to the girl who was looking at us like we were retarded and smiled innocently.

"So hey girl does this mean that you had an affair with the pitcher? I don't think missis teacup would be very happy if she found out." I said as I got in front of her.

"What are you two smoking or have you to just gone full retard on me?" she said backing away a little bit. I looked at Tao and looked back with my eyes crossed.

"Now do we look retarded to you?" I said as Tao, and I don't know how, had gone full derp on me.

"Yeah we're geniuses J-E-N-I-O-U-S-S-E-S meow." She said holding her eyes in place.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuhhhhh…you guys…are…huh?" the girl said losing all faith in humanity and settled for having the most confused look on her face. Tao and I looked at each other before laughing hard talking about "what an idiot" and "we lost her meow". We walked all the way back to our seats and continued eating, well Tao did. I was done with my food.

I looked back over to that girl and she was still staring at us with a dumb look on her face.

"Tao look over there." I said pointing to the girl. She looked and we started busting out laughing as Soul was just getting back to the table.

"So what did I miss?" He said getting back on his food. I pointed to the girl and we all started laughing again. A few people followed my finger to where the girl still stood and started laughing as well, and by the time she snapped out of it we had the whole cafeteria laughing at her. She ran out as two people ran after her.

After the place died down a little, Tao and Soul continued eating. I just drifted off into my own world and thought about escape plans to get out of here. Until…

'OH! I got one. What two things are great people, a murderer, a torturer, phantoms, and great lovers? One is just like the other but different. The other is nothing like the other but the same. Bonus _if I were to meet you for the night, would we start anew? _And _Granted with power, gifted with magic. Mocking holy standards is what she loves. Heretic princess._' That voice said.

'Two people that are the same but different. Hmm... Well from the bonus I can that the main theme is molestation or love and you said phantom…' I thought as I could see out of the corner of my eye that Soul was calling me.

"Hello. Yeah I'm here. What's up?" I said dazed.

"I said so what's up with your coats I asked Tao about it but she said to 'ask you meow'. Do you ever change them or… the color I mean?" He said taking a large bite out of his quesadilla.

"Well it's a difficult question that not even many kaka know but I know a little. The kaka has only but three shades which are black, beige, and white. Now to start off, black coats were the main fighting force in our communities…" Tao and I put our claws and paws on the table for him to see. And after Tao scared the heck out of him when she released her claws I continued.

"Now you may ask why the black coats are the fighters when the beige have blades, but those blades are the beiges last line of defense, unless you count chachakaka…never mind, but we have the better training and strength than the others. We were trained from birth to protect the villages of the kaka and when your people invaded our lands we didn't know what to make of you. We only had that time you destroyed our largest village to go off of, which led to the big rebellions and what not but I digress."

"Wait what happened." He said with confusion and something else in his voice.

"Forget about it, just a dark chapter. Now the beige coats have all the duties of the villages, like farming, cooking, industry, things like that. Tao here hated all of that and went with me to train every morning and can do a lot more in terms of fighting that a regular beige coat. Although, she did learn a lot about cooking…weird."

"Yep meow. Tao loved it when she could eat what she cooked meow." Tao said as she finished her tenth bowl and started on her eleventh.

"The beige also are the plebeians in our society just because of how many there are. Black coats are rare but then you have white coats…now this is where my knowledge is iffy. What I do know is that the older ones are usually the leaders and elders of the villages, but the old white coats are very, very rare because the white coats have bad fits with insanity and hallucinations when they are younger. After about twenty years of struggling with this and not offing themselves, they get their prize of control over their minds. After this, their minds hold more knowledge than a whole town of kaka, and for this reason they are our leaders. The number of surviving white coats has been dwindling since the relocations, and I'm not sure if they will survive another generation…sad really. Tao and I had a friend who was a white coat but the councils took her and...don't ask.

"So she looked like you two just in white? Right?" he said thankfully skipping the other lingering question.

"HA! Hey Tao did Suzukaka look like us?" Tao just smiled and continued eating what was left of her food.

"No she was…unique. To say the least." I said looking back at Soul.

"And to say the most?" he said leaning his chair back on its hind legs.

"To put simply…you would probably fall in love at first glance. Or die from blood loss due to constant nosebleeds. Ask me later, I might tell you more."

"So can you and Tao change coats?" Soul said downing the last of his drink.

"Yes but we wouldn't…ever" I said locking eyes with him.

"Why not?"

"Now the reason we don't just change coats is because it would be like throwing your life and name on the ground and stomping on it. We wouldn't be able to deal with it, and you will always know if a kaka has changed a coat. In that, you can see the regret that is etched on their faces, the way they walk is off, and their speech is off to a degree. Tao and I have a very different kind of verbal…essence, if you will. I am able to form long complicated sentences that go into a higher order, while Tao here unlike most Beige can do the same with the exception of talking in third person and the tick of saying meow at the end of her sentences. Most beige coats find it hard to talk and usually just say the bare minimum to get their point across. White coats usually can talk normally if they aren't in a fit of insanity at that moment, but when they are in a fit their speech is disrupted and straining to hold together.

"Why are you me away. 've nothing taken to be for. Meow." Tao softly said earning her a confused look from Soul and an annoyed look from me.

"Fuck you too Tao. But it looks like your done with your food so Soul do we just leave our stuff here or do we put it somewhere?" I said grabbing the bowls into stacks.

"Not if you don't want to, but if you do the trays go over there by the kitchen doors." He pointed toward the other side of the room that had a window that you push your plates and stuff through so they could easily wash them without working to hard.

"Alright." I grabbed half the bowls Tao had with mine as Tao had everything else and we started toward the window. After we put everything there we left the way we came in.

"So you two ready to go back to the Death room?" Soul said as we wandered for a bit.

"Well Death never said when we had to be back, just that he had to talk to Tao later. So what all is co~ol here." I said with my eyes closed and just following the sound of their footsteps.

"Well, there isn't much we can do here but the high lights are the comp lab, pool, athletics area, and sparring room. Apart from that we have classrooms, the dungeons downstairs and the library. Those are all the high points, so what do you want to see first." He said as we passed a large board that had a lot of clipboards attacked to it. On half the clipboards there were red circles on them while the others still lay white with words written on them. We pass this area, but Soul and I had to stop for Tao, who started talking to this very large woman that sat behind a window about ten feet from the large board of clipboards. After they waved goodbye we started on our way again.

"So what's a pool?" Tao said walking backwards in front of soul with a large smile. I zoned out and started talking in my head.

"So many options huh?"

'Not really, all you want to do is go to the sparring rooms and have a brawl…so lets leave that for the end all right. Go for the comp lab, athletics, that one girl that was hurt saving your sorry butt, and then you can get kicked out…good.' The voice said casually.

"Fine then, Soul could we go to the comp lab first." I said out load with a sigh.

"Sure but afterwards Tao wants to go to the pool. And then you can choose one and then her and so on I guess." He said turning around and taking a left down the seemingly identical hallways.

"S'fine, but I have to ask…what are you?" I asked and he stopped mid step momentarily before answering.

"What do you mean by that? I'm human." He said looking at me from across Tao as she was between us.

"Well you look human but one look at those teeth I knew that you were something in a whole 'nother caliber." I said casually moving Tao to where I was so that I was in the middle of our group.

"Oh that. No, I just filed them down for the look. Do I really look that different?" he said taking another left.

"Yep she told Tao that you looked like a demon and that I shouldn't attack you until we knew that you were bad or if we had to. And if we got separated to meet up at…where are we supposed to meet up at again." Tao said with a confused look on her face, while she ruined my escape plans by telling this kid.

"The old library remember that's where we would've gone…"

"Little paranoid there Dou?" Soul said grinning.

"Yep but that hasn't saved my life but six times now so I feel justified." I said looking at Tao.

"Really since when does being paranoid save people? Usually its just a nuisance right?" soul said as we walked and took another right.

"Tao remembers when Dou and I went to the local human towns she would always go there in advance and scout out escape routes meow. Tao always thought it was strange but one day we snuck into the movies and someone got on the stage and told everyone that the kaka destroyed a settlement out in the northeast meow. Within moments the whole place was at our throats and Dou dragged Tao through the place and we ended up jumping off the roof and into the clothesline on the building next to us meow. She then move Tao to the basement of that building where we escaped through the sewers meow and we never went back for some reason." Tao said as we finally got to a set of doors labeled comp lab.

"Oh look. We're here." I said

""But how did you know that there was a sewer access—"

"OH LOOK WE'RE HERE!" I said again and he walked us in. we walked in and I was assaulted by the smell of dust and stale air mixed with air freshener. They had desks everywhere that with white desktops on them. Surprisingly there were only six people here, our trio, the woman who looked like the attendee, and two girls in cowboy hats and red shirts. The shorter one wore short shorts and the taller one wore denim pants and both had cowboy boots on. I pointed over there when the shorter one started slamming what looked like a ceramic giraffe into the key board to which Soul and Tao shrugged.

"I rarely ever come in here but they need to clean this place out, it smells horrible in here." Soul said with a funny looking face telling me he smelled something terrible.

"So what do you come in here for? There aren't many people here, so it doesn't look that important." I said as we moved over to the first computer. Soul quickly typed in something on the start up page and we were met with Souls personal log in. The background of the computer was a skull with two wings going out the sides and what read 'life is great, I cant wait for the next one.' There were only three designs on top of the background and they were a compass, a musical note enclosed in a blue circle, and a circle with a blue center encircled by red, yellow, and green. He double clicked on the last one and the background was replaced with a white screen and the word GOOGLE in large print in the middle with a little bar underneath that said search.

"What do you want to search but keep it PG or the attendee will get mad." Soul said moving away from the computer and allowing Tao to sit down she rested her paw on the keyboard and where the word search was read 'dsWQEFCSFC'. Tao looked back and grinned as Soul sweat dropped.

"How about you Dou, you want to try?" he said after he reset the screen.

"hmm." I said as I thought up something I would like to know. I started typing and after I was done typing it read.

What are great people, a murderer, a torturer, phantoms, and great lovers? One is just like the other but different. The other is nothing like the other but the same.

I pressed enter and a whole bunch of results came up and a majority of them talked about poltergeists and other such stuff. Soul was just talking to Tao about something so I searched again.

'If I were to meet you for the night, would we start anew?' I second later I had a lot of homemade poems ripping off some song called stellar by some band named Incubus. I moved back out of the site and searched one last time.

Granted with power, gifted with magic. Mocking holy standards is what she loves. Heretic princess.' What came up were lyrics to A Succubus in Rapture by Dimmu Borgir. Soul looked back and saw the picture of a skull with six eye sockets and looked fascinated by it, but I quickly exited out of the page by pressing the red button in the top left corner of the page.

"I'm done. So, pool right?" I said walking toward the doors. I stopped and let them leave first. I ran up to the attendee and apologized for a second for looking up the stuff. I didn't wanting to get Soul in trouble. She said it was all right and I started moving toward the door when I bumped into that short girl in the cowboy hat.

"_**How about you look where you're going?**_" she said in the scariest voice I had ever heard and a face that looked like she wouldn't think twice about slowly torturing you to death as your family watched.

'No that isn't going to happen.'

"No I'd rather not but if you insist on changing it you might want to try and make me if you feel up to it _curvă_." I said in a very calm voice but still threateningly.

"Oh really. How about you meet me at the sparring room later if you're so confident about it." She said but was shot down by her friend.

"Come on, Kidd left us here that way we wouldn't get in trouble while he finished up his paper work with his dad so we can all go to school here, and even got us out of work at the coffee shop today. Sorry cat lady but their won't be any fighting today." She said flatly and like a switch the short girl was frilly, happy, and a little daft.

"So would someone who wasn't a student get in trouble if they fought a student?" I asked the taller girl.

"Yeah but the nonstudent would get in trouble with the other students not the faculty." She said looking me up and down suspiciously.

"And if two non students fought in the sparing areas in the school…" I said with a toothy grin. I glanced over to the shorter girl, who like me, had an evil smile. The tall girl thought it over for a second before muttering something and then getting a fit of chuckles before answering.

"Are you absolutely sure you want your butt handed to you on a golden platter in front of the whole school?"

"I'd love to see you TRY! But we both know that that isn't going to happen." I said putting my claws on my hips.

"Your funeral. Patty lets not keep our opponent waiting."

"Wouldn't dream on it Liz." The girl dubbed Patty said.

"And since everyone is giving their names out, I'm Doukaka." I said shaking their hands.

The three of us moved out the doors and I realized that I had lost Soul and Tao. I told Liz and Patty but they just taunted me by saying 'scare-de-cat' and other such things. We had been walking down the corridors for a good ten minutes before something important stopped me in my tracks.

"Hey do you guys know where the sparring area is?" Liz asked

"Nope."

"Nyot a clue"

"Me neither, so lets just ask someone right quick." Liz opened a door at random and walked in without us.

"So how come I can't see your face. Are you ugly or something?" Patty asked trying to pull my hood back.

"No I am not. Our kind doesn't let anyone see our faces. It's something that we hold sacred." I said a little timidly slapping her hands away as she redoubled her efforts by tackling me and pinning my arms with her legs.

"That's BORING let's see what kind of face my little kitten has." She said inching her hands toward my hood as I tried desperately to throw her off of me or try to get an arm free so I could hit her in the face, but I was completely pinned. I watch agonizingly as she slowed her hand down so I could bath in the inevitability that she was excreting.

Closer her hands got and my squirming increased.

Closer her hands got and I started sinking my head as far back as it would go.

Closer her hands got and her fingertips brushed the lip of my hood.

"Times up." She said but before she could go any farther she was pulled off of me by a black figure. Before I could get a look at my savior I was pulled quickly but gently to my feet and into a ramrod straight stance. I looked in front of me and to my surprise there was a boy in a black tuxedo with a skull tie. He had jet-black hair with three stripes on his left side, thin lips and eyebrows, a small nose, and large yellow eyes.

He started looking me up and down… I was about to take a step to the side but before I could move a muscle he simply said 'Don't'.

He circled around me three times and pulled a hair off my shoulder. He then grabbed the end of my hair and moved it about a quarter inch to the right. After that he grabbed my jacket and moved it to the left a little. He also grabbed my boots and positioned them forward and parallel. He moved back admiring his work.

"Flawlessly A symmetrical. Oh how I wish I had two of you wouldn't that be so delightfully—" the kid started saying until Liz walked through the door.

"So all we have to do is take a right and…"she paused and saw that I was perfectly symmetrical.

"Kidd did you really have to make her—"

"Symmetrical? Yes, I mean just look at her. She has all the qualifications of being a individual that has perfect…**symmetry."** The kid said looking at all of me with stars in his eyes.

I looked at the people around me for a moment. Liz was face palming, that kid was still looking at me in a creepy way, and Patty was edging behind me. Before Patty could do anything to me I turned, much to that kids displeasure, and asked where was it to the sparring room. Liz shrugged and that kid told us to follow him. When Liz and Patty started following, so did I.

As we walked toward the sparring room I had to walk around our group to get away from Patty, who was still trying to get a look at my face. After her sixteenth attempt I heard the kid tell her to stop and to my amazement she slouched down and obeyed him.

"So hey kid…what's your name?"

"Death the kidd. And yours?"

I blinked a couple times but he wasn't laughing or even grinning.

"Really." I said dumbly.

"Really…weird name but if that's what you're name that's your name. So Really why are we all going to the sparring rooms?"

"It's not Really you daft boy. It's Doukaka. But what I meant was 'really is that your name?'" I said into the palm of my claws, but when I looked up I was walking by myself. I looked behind me and death the kid, **sigh**, had a level on a gigantic picture frame hanging from the wall. On either side he had a girl trying to comfort him and tell him that the picture was fine. I walked back over to them and I could barely hear their conversation.

"The symmetry is off. I can't even keep the symmetry in balance I'm scum worthless a debilitating leach on this academy."

"No I looks fine. Right patty, kid its okay if—"

"Okay Liz. If I the symmetry is off by a minuscule then I don't deserve to live."

'Dam' I thought to myself.

"But wouldn't that make the DWMA look unique. I bet not a single person would ever know if it wasn't level." Patty said while patting him on the back.

I looked at the picture, which had a group of people on it and that ginger guy with his arms around a girl with an eye patch and the other around a guy with a literal screw in his head, and saw that it was a little off by about three degrees counterclockwise. I grabbed the level and lifted, with much more force than I was expecting to use, on one side and it moved barely any, but just enough that the sides were all level or perpendicular to the floor.

"I should just shrivel up and die if I cant even leave this picture that's so far leaning to the si—" he stopped and looked at the picture frame. Forgetting the whole ordeal he snatched up the level I put on the ground and began checking the degrees.

"Per-hmm yep perfectly level. Did you do this Dou?" he said still admiring the frame.

"No someone walked by and felt bad and fixed it for you. I just walked up now." Patty and Liz looked at me like I was crazy but I just waved them off and we continued down the hall.

"Hey by the way if you didn't hear me, I said my name is Doukaka, and we are going to the sparring room because Patty and I are going to have a brawl. I am probably going to get kicked out after that tho." I said shadow boxing for a second before stopping myself.

"Why would you get kicked out for sparring? Everyone gets into fist fights here, and usually its acceptable if a teacher is watching to stop the fight if it goes to far." Death the kid said with a non-understanding mask.

"...Hey Death the Kid—"

"Just call me Kidd" he said with a small smile.

"Okay… so if I accidentally put her in the hospital how would that go over."

"Well—"

"Well nothing that isn't going to happen because…**I'm going to kill you…**'r spirit after the first round." Patty said again kind of scaring me just a bit, but I didn't let it show and walked on.

We came to another set of double doors, I think double doors were a fetish for whoever designed this place, with the words Fair Fights.

Kidd walked up and pushed passed the doors and you could see fighting all over the place. There were areas taped on the ground in twelve foot by twelve foot squares and in almost all of them stood two people fighting each other. In the back was a ten-foot obsidian wall and a walk way underneath that said companion fighting.

"What is companion fighting?" I asked as my head wore a smile that my face was straining to cash.

"That is where Meisters and weapons fight with each other against a different team. The wall is there so that if you were to do a soul resonance you wouldn't disrupt everyone on this side. So Dou you want to fight Patty, Liz and Patty, or Liz Patty and I?" Kid said composedly.

For the second time that day I blinked at his remarks.

"How would I fight all three of you? You three would have all sides and could just surround me. Well if you could fight as one like that pair I saw the first day I got here that would work, but you have three people in the equation and I don't know if you could even—" I was stopped from a comeback as both Liz and Patty Dematerialize into twin pistols and were in Kid's hands upside down so that his pinkies were on the triggers. I thought and said screw it.

"Patty first, then all three of you, that is if Patty can even stand after the first match."

"Bring it" Patty said confidently.

"Then it's settled. Hold on a second let's find a free mat." Kid said moving to a mat where two kids looked tired out and were getting their things together.

"HEY A KAKA IS FIGHTING A GIRL" you could hear from the other side of the the mat room. I looked over to Patty to see that she had changed into workout clothes, somehow, and walked over to the opposite side of the square. The whole way over there she waved to the huge crowd that had formed around us and had received cheering. As I walked onto the mat, I got a chorus of boo's to which I flipped them all off. Before we could go any farther a little scrawny guy walked into the middle of the ring, or square, and waved his hand over for us to meet in the middle. After we all got the center he said in a cracking voice.

"Alright I have no idea how you got such a large crowd, but that doesn't matter. We are going to be making this an official match. So to you…" he said to Patty.

"…No low blows, illegal blows or losing, and for you kaka no killing, murdering or winning …" he looked at the faces we were giving him and he looked very uncertain.

"Kidding, kidding jeez can't take a joke. The only rule you both need to know is that you have to stay in the square. Everything else doesn't matter, so shake hands back up and fight till one of you can't anymore. ANNNNND FIGHT." He yelled into our ears, and ran out of there quickly. We shook hands and backed up for the fight.

DING!

I crouched down and slowly circled Patty who looked like she was frozen. Not moving a muscle. I lunged after I got to the left side of her and threw a soft punch at her face, but she grabbed my hand and slammed me into the ground hard. I skidded to the edge of the line and the crowd went nuts.

I got up and she was just standing there watching. I circled her again and waited until she had to move her feet so that she could follow me with her eyes. I took that moment to do a cat spirit one and create long blue streaks in the air as my claws ripped through the air. I succeeded in making her move and even got a hit on her that made her fly back about two feet. Before she could recover I put my palms together, brought them to my chest, and forced my palms into her chest. She flew back and had the grace of having the crowd catch her and place her back in the ring. She was scowling as her sister cheered from the sidelines.

"Don't let that cat get you down you've got this. Don't give up."

"Come on, again" Patty said as she walked back up. She moved twice as fast as she had and before I knew it she sucker punched me in the side of the head with a vicious blow. Dazed I threw a kick and it connected with her hand. To bad that hand grabbed my ankle and she arced me in to the ground. I rolled backwards and got to my feet to catch a foot slamming into my chest as making me fly out of the ring. The crowd very generously moved out of the way so that I could hit the ground with my face.

"HA! That's right Patty show that girl who's boss." Liz was shouting.

I picked myself up and moved back to the ring. Patty was smiling and the crowd was laughing and cheering. I laughed myself and we both got into a fighting stance. I started jumping from foot to foot and she looked mesmerized, **become three**, I created two doppelgangers and we all circled her. The crowd was pissed and was booing my move down. I sent in the first and she through a powerful punch that sent the copy to the edge of the mat on a collision course with the crowd but it disappeared into nothing before it could hit them. I sent the second in half a second after I lunged at her. She through a large right hook that I ducked under, but she saw this and tried to throw her knee my in the face. I jumped out of the way as my other copy slammed a fist into the back of her head, dazing her I got to my feet, jumped about ten feet in the air, and jumped from the air toward her as she just sent my other copy packing with a knee to the stomach and a elbow to the spine. I tackled into the back of her and landed on her stomach and commenced to hay making her. I got in ten good hits before she got a hand free and hit me in the ribs with a powerful punch that made one of my ribs make a soft crack.

I moved back as she jumped to her feet quickly and ran to me. She slid to rest of the five feet and kicked my feet out from me, making me tumble. Before I could get up and counter I felt my head whip to the side before a searing pain exploded in the side of my face. When I tried to get up she threw her whole being into a kick to my side that made me fly to the edge of the mat, and I probably would have flown out again but she jumped with me and punched me down into the ground hard from my flight. I rolled to the side but I could tell I was losing and Patty was in the same boat as I.

"Come on Patty you can do it. She's almost down. You can win this." Liz yelled.

Upon Patty hearing this she jumped to my left and tried to round house kick me in the head but I ducked and she continued turning. As she was facing away from me in her spin I grabbed the back of her shirt, yanked her off her feet, and threw her across the mat. She corrected herself before she got even six feet but I predicted this and I tackled her before she could get her bearings and yelled out as loud as I could 'I'mma beat the crap outta you!' I then went a little nuts slamming my fists into her face and after the thirty ninth punch I brought back my fist and slammed it as hard as I could into her face. I melted off of her exhaustedly and just kind of laid there moving my tail onto Patty's chest to see if she was still breathing. She was.

After about five seconds of complete silence you could hear heated murmurs before someone said what was on everyone minds.

"What the fuck just happened?" the crowd erupted into pandemonium and I just lay there giggling. I felt my tail move and saw that Patty was awake with a bruised ego. She got up and offered me her hand. I accepted and when I got up and dusted myself off I felt a hand slip into my hood pulling it back. Before anyone could see my face I had both my claws covering it so the most anyone saw was my chocolate skin. I then reverse spin kicked in the direction of patty and missed hitting Kidd, from the sound of the grunt, in the stomach. I then shot my hand back and pulled the hood back over my head before anyone could see.

"Aww I didn't get a look at your face lets try that again" patty said next to me. But me grabbing her by her throat and dragging her to the obsidian wall, while she was having trouble breathing, stopped that. When we got to the obsidian wall I slammed her into it with all the strength I had left and put my face right next to her's.

"You ever do that again and I will RUIN you I will take away everything that you hold dear in your life and after you have lost it all I will force feed you cyanide and watch as you choke and cough your last struggling breaths. Do you understand what I just said?" I said in a calm but harsh voice. She nodded her head up and down vigorously.

"No, say it." I said squeezing her throat a little harder.

"Ack… I …under-ack-stand you." she was turning a little blue and I let go and walked right out of that area. I walked passed everything and everyone until I found the exit. That done I kept walking past the nasty glares, venders, restaurants, and running kids until I got to the library and kicked in the front door startling about three or four librarians. I stomped up the four flights of stairs walked down the short hallway to my room, and kicked in the door to my room startling a single librarian who was putting most of my stuff in trash bags. In the calmest voice I could mutter, which wasn't much, I told her to 'get the fuck out of here!' to which she took but a millisecond to do. I walked over to a large concrete slab in the corner and punched it hard enough to where there was a numbed down ping of pain cursing through my hand and wrist. After that I started to calm down and started taking all of my things out of the trash bags and rearrange them.

"All finished?" a woman said from behind me.

"Just leave me be. I don't have any money that you could use so, please just go." I said not caring to turn around and see who was talking to me.

"You misunderstand I am not here to mug you. I'm not even here to tell you to leave, because I would like to offer you something."

"And what would that **muffle**" I said falling onto my ruined bed and crashing my face into my pillow.

"Oh I think you remember. But what friend was it that you wanted back." I threw my head back at that question and was a little confused actually. There leaning her back against the doorframe sat a girl with a mouse hat and mouse like legs and feet. She had short dark pink hair and soft pink eyes, she wore mouse boots with vertical black and white striped stockings that reached the tops of her thighs, and a short vertical striped black and white dress that went mid thigh.

"Yes so you do remember." She said gauging my reactions.

"Who. Who could you bring back?" I said suspiciously.

"Well I cant bring back 'anyone', but I know a girl who can. She just asks you a few favors now and then." She started twisting on a whisker as if it were bothering her.

"So who would you get back if you could."

"Friends and family I have lost but they can rest in peace. They've earned it. Who I'd want back is my old friend suzukaka. She was one of the few that I could truthfully call a friend and not feel like I was lying. So who would you want back if you could?" I said as she walked over and sat next to me on my bed and laid down next to me.

"Probably my sister, she was very good at what she did."

"Which was?"

"Normal stuff really, she planned for things for our community and was really good friends with this girl who liked frogs. Ha ha ha. This one time she spent the day with her and came home with a wart on her neck, and my four other sisters and I made fun of her for weeks that she got a Frog's Hickey from that girl." The girl started having a giggle fit but stopped after a minute or two.

"Yeah we had good times… but that all changed when the DWMA killed her."

"WHAT! Why would they kill your sister?" I said getting pissed off at the school all over again.

"Yep all because she was born a witch….**sigh**… we tried. We tried SOOOO hard to keep her out of harms way, but she came here one day like she normally did. Was confronted, had to fight, lost miserably, and had her soul eaten. EATEN. Can you believe that?" She said moving to a sitting position.

"How did they eat a soul I thought that that was all hocus pocus stuff? Fake." I said sitting up as well.

"There was a study and as it turns out none of the kaka can sense soul wavelengths. It was just impossible. Although the kaka clan uses their soul wavelength for their and your attacks, you just can sense yourself using your wavelength." She brought out a magazine article from Death City Today and showed me.

"Huh. Weird." I said after reading the article.

"Hey so I got to be going now so I'll see you again soon okay." She said out of the blue.

"Okay but what is your name? I'm Doukaka."

"M-my name…oh that's…oh yeah, I am a contact of M. that's all you need to know. Now could you keep our conversation a secret? I'd appreciate it." She said winking as she left.

"But wait." I ran out the door to see that she was gone, but in her place was a card with a large M. on the front. On the back instead of a badly drawn eye, there was a crudely drawn field mouse with a long tail.

Studying the picture I didn't hear the footsteps coming up behind me.

"Hey Dou. We need to talk right quick if it would be all right with you." I heard Liz say from behind me.

"So is Patty here to disgrace my kind again." I said putting the card in my inside jacket pocket and turning around to see a gloomy looking trio. Liz and Kid looked ashamed for Patty and Patty looked destroyed. Red bloodshot eyes and what looked like dried tear marks littering her face.

"And speak of the devil." After I said that she flinched like she wanted to run away or give me a hug but she restrained herself.

"We just wish to talk to you in a diplomatic nonviolent environment if that is acceptable to you." kid said putting his hands up to suppress the situation before something bad happens.

"Really, diplomatic and nonviolent that sounds so darn swell. Hold on, kid could you follow me I want to show you something right quick…alone." I said trying not to put any sarcasm in my words. He said okay and we walked through my door. He took one look at my room and cried out in displeasure. Before Liz and Patty could try to comfort him, I kicked him in the room and slammed the door. I looked over to the two remaining people in the hallway.

"Anyone else up for diplomatic and nonviolent. Please say **yes**," I said gripping a fist.

"Patty?" Liz questioned making it clear that Patty was the one who wanted, or was forced, to come here.

"I didn't know. I'm so so so so sorry. They shouldn't have ever done those things to you or your people. I just… I just had no idea you guys had to go through that as kids—"

"NOPE!" I said and started walking off but was stopped by a hand on my shoulder.

"Please, I'm sorry for what I did. I know now why you hold your seclusion so dear and why you tried your hardest to make sure that no one would attempt and take that away from you. We know a little of how you feel because we both were subjected to the same treatment back in New York living off the honorable people's goods that we had to steal. We don't know how you feel, but we know a little. So might you forgive me." Patty said solemnly, a tear coming out of her left eye.

"When did my sister grow a brain?" Liz muttered a little loudly and Patty turned and made a face at her.

"I'll think about it." I said before walking ahead and back down the stairs and out the door of the library. As I walked down every alleyway I could find I had the time to think about what I can do…and if I can forgive Patty. That seemed to be the only thing on my mind as my feet meticulously stepped passed the rusted dumpsters and rotting trash.

'Would you if you could, and I mean think about that before you answer.'

"I don't know I mean she did what she did in ignorance but she did that which we would kill to prevent." I said aloud not caring if anyone was listening. I was thinking of leaving anyway. I have my sister here but when I thought big picture…I had better options.

'Then don't forgive her and shun her every time you see her for the rest of your life. Knowing that at one point you two could have been great friends.' The voice said in a sarcastic tone.

"But that's the problem if we can be friends and what not, could I be able to let that happen." I said looking at my feet as I walked.

'Same problem, different criteria. You could forgive her and become friends and be holly and jolly to your hearts consent, but there had to be at least one person there that saw your face. And if that person was to expose that knowledge you would always know who the culprit is who started it.'

"That last part could be given to both sides."

'Would it really matter in the first option if you were to choose option one and leave into the night without food water or a plan nor directions into the DESERT!'

"Point taken."

'So where to?' the voice said.

"Two things, first I'm going to name you…jack."

'Jack? Really?'

"Yeah like Jack the Ripper"

'Oh, okay continue.'

"Second I want to see the cemetery…in the morning. So for now I think I'm going to crash in someone's yard. Wouldn't want to talk with Kid and them before I'm ready right." I said changing directions to head on to the edge of the city.

'Whatever.' And thus ended my fun conversation with jack.

I walked for a good hour and my eyes started drooping as the sun had set an the moon had come out to smile its crazy smile. I hit the outskirts a while ago and was just walking around waiting to get tired. I looked around and saw that I was in the middle of nowhere, but if you looked hard enough you could see the out line of a house. Wanting to go to bed soon I started jogging over to the house.

It was a blocky house with a porch made out of the same material that the house was made of. Running up and down and all across the side were what looked like stitches, and on one side of the stitches it was light grey where on the other it was dark grey. All the lights were off and I felt a little awake due to my jog over here and did what anyone would do in the middle of the night while being in a city that hates you…I broke in.

I climbed the wall to the closest closed window on the second floor, and jiggled the window until the lock on it turned enough to where I could open it. I silently climbed in and looked at the room I was in. it looked just like the outside with the exception of a dresser, a small mirror attached to a smaller dresser, a bed, and someone sleeping in said bed. I stealthily went to the first door, which turned out to be a closet, and closed it. I then went to the other door in the room and opened it quietly, but the door creaked loudly.

The person shifted, I quickly slipped out of the opening that I had made and ran as silently as I could to a hiding place. I went down some stairs and through what looked live a living room but I didn't pay much attention. I ran through and made it into the kitchen. I opened up a cabinet, thinking if that person hadn't followed me yet they wouldn't at all, and was met with nothing. I tried again but with the same result. There didn't seem to be any food because not only were all the cabinets empty the refrigerator was also deserted. Without much left to do I walked out of the kitchen and back into the dining room, there was a table and six chairs going around it, there were also many flower vases with dead flowers in them. It looked like the stitch pattern was on every surface in the house, because not a single item I had seen here yet produced an unstitched design. Walking out of this room I journeyed into the living room.

There was a couch facing a love-seat with a table in the middle, a swivel chair pushed in at a desk that held a computer and a briefcase in the corner. Again everything had the stitch design, the stitch thing was getting old really, except for one door that said 'STAY OUT' I tried the handle and to my surprise it opened. I looked to my sides and behind me before I move through the doorframe. The doorframe led to more stairs leading down. As soon as I walked into the basement I was assaulted by the smell of chemicals and decaying flesh. I moved in and saw that the decaying thing was due to a Great Pyrenees being split open on an operating table. The smell wasn't that bad and there was another operating table behind a lot of equipment so I grabbed two lab coats from the corner for pillows, pushed the table a little farther in the back, laid down on it and fell asleep after a while.


End file.
